


to hide the wolves of sleep

by beardsley



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 20:53:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beardsley/pseuds/beardsley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SHIELD are the ones to create the Winter Soldier and, in 2013, deploy him to aid the Avengers. Some meetings are inevitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Credit's due where credit's due. Haipollai gave me the prompt that initially got us talking about the AU where SHIELD creates the Winter Soldier. Lanyon was my sounding board for bad, worse and worst ideas _and_ beta read the finished product. This story and I owe them really a lot.
> 
> Title is a reference to [this](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22519) Dylan Thomas poem.
> 
>  **Warning** : references to past torture and brainwashing.

Manhattan is burning, two SHIELD agents have gone rogue to fight their own war and a ticking time bomb is the one thing standing between humanity and oblivion. If there is one thing Nick Fury knows how to play, however, it's bad odds; and if there is one thing Nick Fury always has an abundance of, it's aces up his sleeve. This is how the game is won.

Before Hill can start barking orders at the still dazed-looking agents on the bridge, Nick stops her.

'Get communications back online. I want eyes and ears at ground zero, stat.' He pauses. Hill's brow furrows.

'Sir?'

'Activate codename Winter Soldier,' he says. It's not a split-second eleventh hour judgement call. It's a calculated strategic decision. Desperate times, desperate measures. 'They're going to need him down there.'

This is how the game is won: aces up sleeves and playing bad odds, and Nick Fury is a master of both.

~

Dust is settling, and in his entire life Steve hasn't felt this sort of bone-deep exhaustion. Not when he was a ninety-pound asthmatic and three flights of stairs made him wheeze like an old man, not in the trenches with not nearly enough rations to satisfy his metabolism, not when he was angling the plane's controls downwards and trying — however ineptly — to say his goodbyes, not even when he first woke up and nothing, not a single thing, made any sense.

Dust is settling. Steve lets himself sit on an overturned car and rest his hands on his knees and just breathe for a moment. Bruce is alive; Stark is alive; Barton and Romanoff are alive; Thor, of course, is alive. This must be what winning feels like, but the taste of it on Steve's tongue is indistinguishable from ashes and smoke. The smell is sharp and sweet, but then again it might just be blood.

Maybe it would be better if the casualty lists weren't still ringing in his ears, from where Stark patched their comm link through to the NYPD radio channel.

Then again, maybe winning just ain't what it's cracked up to be.

'You okay?'

Steve lifts his eyes to the one agent whose name he didn't catch in the chaos. Agent or soldier; his jacket doesn't carry any SHIELD insignia, and his mask is something he hasn't seen any other operative wear. Next to Romanoff and Barton he looks alien, but the rifle slung across his shoulder is a comfortingly familiar sight to Steve.

'Fine,' he says. He gets up and resists the impulse to dust off his own uniform. It would take a hazmat team to make it clean again. 'Sorry, we haven't —' Steve stops and clears his throat. _We haven't been formally introduced_ sounds ridiculous. 'Sorry.'

It's hard to decipher the agent's expression from behind the mask, and he must sense Steve trying. With a tired sigh he takes it off, revealing an equally tired smirk. They fought back to back what seems like moments ago, and the leftover adrenaline is still buzzing in Steve's veins.

'Codename Winter Soldier,' the agent says. He cocks his head to one side, and the look in his eyes is almost challenging.

'That's kind of a mouthful.'

'I save nicknames for second dates,' says the Winter Soldier. Steve barks out a surprised laugh; it's the last thing he could have been expecting.

He opens his mouth to counter that — something about the way the Winter Soldier is eyeing him up makes Steve want to try for a witty comeback (that, and he remembers thinking he could have used someone like that back in the war, and it's the first time he's thought of his team from the war with anything but overwhelming ache) — but then Thor swoops in, looking as weary and human as a god ever could. He looks between Steve and the Winter Soldier.

'We have located the shawarma place of which Stark spoke,' he says. 'The rest are already there. Will you join us, my friends?'

'I could eat,' Steve admits. Food does sound good; food and about fifty hours of sleep, but he can settle for just one of those things.

The Winter Soldier shrugs, but then his smirk gets wider. The expression looks good on him, reckless and handsome, and Steve's fingers itch for a pencil. He only laughs when the Winter Soldier gives an exaggerated bow, saying, 'After you, Captain Rogers.'

~

Barton stops him outside the shawarma joint, and it takes a few tries and a lot of awkward throat-clearing before he manages to get out, 'Cap, look, this isn't a good idea.'

'Excuse me?'

'Him,' says Barton, jerking his chin in the direction of the entrance, where — right. Where the Winter Soldier just disappeared, and where Steve was set to follow him. 'He's not…'

Steve waits, but Barton doesn't finish. 'He's not what?'

'Not like me or Natasha.' Barton rubs the bridge of his nose. 'He's not just an agent. He's not like anyone else. Getting close? Not a good idea.'

SHIELD has been controlling, or trying to, every step Steve's taken in the 21st century. He knows Barton must mean well but all it does is make Steve want to rebel. He's had enough control and meddling, enough being handled with kid gloves and above all else he's had enough being told what to do for his own good.

Steve doesn't even know the guy's name but he wants to. For once, and after everything, he decides he should be entitled to a little goddamn selfishness.

He gives Barton a curt nod and goes inside, and has to immediately roll his eyes when Stark throws up his hands and announces, 'Ladies and gentlemen, here's Captain America, official team dad! The crowd goes wild.'

'Saved you a seat,' says the Winter Soldier, nodding at the chair next to his. Steve takes it.

Conversation isn't exactly crackling, not even after Stark's friend, Rhodes, joins the party. They're all too exhausted. For himself, Steve is probably still in shock — he doesn't know if he's the last person out of all these people to find out about the whole space aliens thing and it's making his skin crawl. Taking every new impossibility in stride wore him down. His ribs ache and his entire body feels bruised. He wonders, because he has to wonder, what SHIELD will expect of him now. Is he supposed to join them officially? Is he supposed to get a uniform and a badge?

He thinks back to the crates filled with Hydra weapons stacked one on top of the other, to the split second of sheer disbelief at hearing the words _Nuke headed your way_ (apparently this is a time where the definition of greater good has been expanded dramatically at the cost of value put on people's lives), and to the unbearable certainty that all the information he's been given was lacking, edited and sanitised.

The thing is, he's not sure he wants anything to do with SHIELD.

He's falling half asleep when he feels it: someone nudging his ankle. Steve jerks in surprise, shifting so both his feet are tucked under his chair. He looks around the table (if Stark wants to start something, Steve swears to god he will beat him up right here and now), but no one pays him any heed — that is, until Steve's eyes fall on the Winter Soldier.

The Winter Soldier smirks, that same recklessness bright in his eyes, but now there is something else. Something more.

'Bucky,' he whispers, only loud enough to be heard over the bar staff shuffling around trying to clean the place up. 'Well, it's actually Sergeant James Barnes, but you should call me Bucky.'

Steve blinks, then uncurls his legs and doesn't jump when the — when _Bucky_ presses his knee against Steve's. There are a myriad things Steve could say to that, and out of all of them Steve decides to go with probably the most ill-advised. The look Bucky is giving him, and the daring edge to his smile, make Steve want to be just as reckless.

'Is this your idea of a second date?' he asks. He can't quite keep the incredulous tone out of his voice.

'Hey, Cap, I'm pretty easy,' Bucky says, shrugging.

'Steve.' It's Bucky's turn to blink, and it's Steve's turn to smirk as he clarifies, 'You should call me Steve.'

It might be a dash of colour creeping up Bucky's neck or it might be Steve's wishful thinking. Bucky drops his eyes to his food, trying to fight to hide a grin. They're flirting, Steve realises with something that should be more of a shock. This definitely counts as flirting. Bucky's leg is still pressed against Steve's under the table, and Steve wonders how many rules he's breaking.

He never bothered to check what the rules even are in this place and time but he finds he doesn't care all that much.

They're not the only ones talking quietly. On Steve's right, Romanoff is angled towards Barton and it seems like they're engaged in a staring contest — it also seems like it's all the communication they need. From time to time one of them will shift or raise an eyebrow, and it reminds Steve of the way Dum-Dum and Jim used to be back in his time. Stark and Rhodes are bickering and Bruce watches them with a confused but fond expression. Thor is pretty invested in his shawarma but Steve is sure he's got more than enough on his mind.

For all that these people are a time bomb, they'd make a good team as long as someone points them in the same direction instead of at each other and at each other's throats. Steve knows this is what Fury had in mind for him with the Avengers Initiative, whether Steve liked it or not.

After seeing the Winter Soldier in action, after having him fight at his side, Steve has no doubts who he'd take as his second in command.

When Barton and Romanoff's comms go off and they politely but surely ask that all present direct themselves to SHIELD headquarters in Times Square for a round of debriefings, Steve just sighs. He was waiting for it, even if he's not exactly enthusiastic. But he did kind of disobey direct orders, kidnap two SHIELD agents and steal a SHIELD aircraft. If they want to chew him out for that, Steve thinks he'll just tell them to read his damn service record.

Bucky holds him back as they're leaving. They stand in the doorway, watching Rhodes take off; Stark graciously offered to accompany the rest to HQ without putting up much of a fight. The street before them is in ruins and something twists painfully in the pit of Steve's stomach. He thought the one thing he wouldn't have to see again, after waking up here, would be cities levelled for one man's ego.

'So listen,' Bucky starts, scratching the back of his neck. He doesn't meet Steve's eye. 'After we're cleared and Fury's done yelling — you got any plans?'

It's pretty forward and there is nothing remotely platonic about the definite hint of colour in Bucky's cheeks. Steve considers his answer very carefully, then just as carefully decides, _fuck it_.

'I think I do now,' he says. He waits for Bucky to look up at him and only then lets himself smile the way he wants to. He feels a little dizzy when the expression he gets in return is open and warm and _real_. They keep grinning like kids right until four sleek black SHIELD cars pull up as close to the bar as they can, given all the debris lying around.

It's the first time Steve has looked forward to anything since they thawed him. He can take debriefings, and yelling, and probably the inevitable black mark on his record.

All he has to think about is the motorbike he'd bought three days ago.

All he has to think about are the possibilities, and the chances he's not wasting.

~

Steve's only ever spent time around the Times Square headquarters when they called him in for checkups and appointments with his therapist and, after four hours of standing his ground as the World Security Council members act righteously outraged and indignant because Steve did the job they well goddamn defrosted him for, the corridors all look the same. He was supposed to meet Bucky in his quarters and, as he passes another hallway lined with unmarked doors, Steve curses himself for not asking for more specific directions.

It feels like he's running late and he hates it, the thrum of a low-level anxiety right beneath his skin.

Finally he gives up. The staff quarters might as well be on another planet. It takes two elevator rides before he stumbles across a SHIELD agent and he tries to stomp down the embarrassment that makes the back of his neck warm.

'Sorry. I'm looking for someone,' he says. If he sounds a little lost, it's because he really kind of is.

The agent nods in encouragement.

'It's a Sergeant James Barnes?'

The agent's polite smile slips. 'Who?'

'James Barnes,' Steve repeats, his voice going a little shaky at the end. He can't have remembered wrong. Something cold and heavy settles in the pit of his stomach.

'I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name.' The agent makes a move like she wants to pat Steve on the arm, then reconsiders. 'Um, if it helps, I've only been here for two weeks. I don't know everyone yet.'

It sounds like a lie, and not a very good one at that: the kind of lie Steve's been fed ever since he woke up, where people don't seem to be sure if he won't break down and start crying with the slightest encouragement. They want him to fight their wars but they think he's made of glass.

He exchanges mindless pleasantries with the agent and doesn't waste any more of her time.

The second agent he asks for directions to Sergeant Barnes' quarters looks just as blank. Steve's throat is tight with a feeling he can't name. It's like a panic attack crossed with an asthma attack crossed with the dizziness of his blood sugar being too high, except he's had none of those things in a long time, and a part of Steve knows very well it's just fear, plain and simple.

He's afraid. He's afraid because he met a person and he made a connection, immediate and almost overwhelming in its effortlessness, and now he's losing it. It's slipping through his fingers. He met the first person in this entire century who made it almost, _almost_ okay and he's gone now. There's a thought Steve refuses to entertain, a possibility bearing down on him that chokes him up just as well as falling headfirst into an iceberg.

Maybe Bucky was never there at all.

Maybe Steve is going insane, finally.

Maybe —

He ends up having his well-deserved panic attack in a fourth-floor bathroom, sitting on the floor with his head between his knees and his hands shaking bad enough he has to press them flat against the cold tiles. He stays there for a long while, trying to get his breathing under control. In and out, slow and easy; his mother used to talk him through the asthma attacks he had as a child but it was always her voice and her fingers stroking his hair that calmed Steve down in the end.

All of the adrenaline leftover from the fight in Manhattan, all of the disbelief he kept pushing to the side to deal with the immediate threats, all of the anger and frustration slowly seep out of his bones. It leaves him hollow. He tips his head back against the wall and shuts his eyes, and keeps breathing. The uniform they gave him was pretty comfortable but still suffocating, and Steve is glad to be rid of it. Captain America shouldn't freak out in bathrooms. It just wouldn't do.

Steve doesn't feel like Captain America much; he doesn't feel like anyone, not really, not right now.

It takes some time before he swallows around the nausea still heavy in his throat and starts thinking. He's not going insane. Something is wrong, and he doesn't have enough information to put the puzzle pieces together — but just because the bigger picture is beyond him right now doesn't mean it's not there. It just means Steve has to stop feeling sorry for himself and work to get what he needs. And what he needs is more context, more intel, more background.

Steve knows that Bucky Barnes is not just a figment of his broken psyche.

And despite the initial knee-jerk fear Steve was _not_ the only one who acknowledged him.

~

Barton is at medical, loudly and at length complaining about having to be there in the first place. It almost makes Steve smile; Dum-Dum was just like that, going around thinking he was immortal. (He wasn't, of course not, and the day he died is printed neatly at the top of his file. The files are still in Steve's apartment, though maybe the building isn't there at all any more. Who knows if it survived the attack, even this far from Manhattan?) His expression of studious boredom and annoyance turns a little guarded when Steve walks in.

'Hey, Cap.'

Steve nods at him, then clears his throat to get the doctor's attention. 'Could we have some privacy, please?'

'Agent Barton still needs to be cleared,' she says, pursing her lips. 'I'm not releasing him until I know —'

'This'll take five minutes,' Steve promises. He tries a smile, the harmless smile of a nice fella who is not quite sure of what's going on around him that got Steve through more than one awkward encounter. He used to hate being underestimated. Now he's using it like an offensive weapon. 'I promise, doc.'

She gives him the stink eye but, faced with Steve's steadfast politeness, her resolution crumbles. She throws Barton a withering glare and leaves with a swish of her coat.

'I don't really need rescuing,' says Barton. He rubs his palms over his thighs, then hops off the gurney. He doesn't look ready to go out in the field again. There is dirt all over his uniform and long-dry blood in his hair. 'But thanks. So, uh, what's the plan? More fast food? Or are they gonna let us take potshots at Loki? Cause I would be so down with that.'

Steve shakes his head. 'Loki's in custody. Far as I know, everything's under control. I'm not —' He breathes in, then out. 'I'm not here in any sort of official capacity, Agent Barton. This isn't about the team.'

He can't help stressing the word, _team_ , because otherwise he'd have to make sarcastic air-quotes. Barton quirks an eyebrow. Good; they're on the same page.

'You told me getting close to the Winter Soldier wasn't a good idea,' says Steve. 'I want to know why.'

After a beat, Barton's shoulders slump. 'Well, fuck. Guess I should've seen that one coming.' He leans against the gurney and the way he avoids looking Steve in the eye says more than words could. Eventually he rakes his fingers through his hair and starts, 'I warned you ‘cause you seem like a good guy. I didn't want you to — I don't know. Get your hopes up, probably. Get attached. Something like that.'

'Why?'

Now, Barton looks at him. 'Why? Because it's like I said. The Winter Soldier isn't like any other agent. And, since you're here asking _me_ for answers, I'm assuming he's already gone.'

Steve just nods.

'Yeah. Thought so.' Barton sighs. 'I don't know any details, Cap. Not sure anyone does, except Fury and maybe a couple higher-ups. I only met the Winter Soldier once before today, when I was new at SHIELD. Four, maybe five years ago. They assigned me to him for one mission. Said they wanted me to see their best sniper at work, so I had something to aspire to.'

'So you worked together.'

'Kind of,' Barton says. At Steve's incredulous look, he shrugs. 'He wasn't exactly sociable. We didn't talk much. But — see, okay, I'm pretty confident I'm the best sniper of all the active agents. The Winter Soldier, though? He was something else. I remember thinking he was like a guided missile or something. He stalked the target like no one I've seen before or since and then took the shot like nobody's business, and he made it look easier than breathing. Gave me something to aspire to, all right.'

Steve files the information away. He's not really surprised. Fighting beside the Winter Soldier gave him some idea of what kind of an agent he might be: professional and cool under enormous pressure, skilled and trained to an almost inhuman degree for someone without any enhancements. After Manhattan, none of Barton's confessions come as a surprise.

'That doesn't explain why or where he's vanished,' says Steve.

'I didn't finish. The moral of the story here is that when the op was done and we got flown back in to New York, he vamoosed. Gone. MIA. I wanted to get him to celebrate, you know, my first real mission and all. I'd've bought him a few beers. Maybe we'd bond.' Barton grins. 'You know, I wasn't exactly sociable either when I first came here but I thought we could be asocial sniper friends. Except he disappeared into thin air.

'I did look for him,' Barton says. 'It kind of gave me a taste of how mindfuck-y this place can be. It was like in that Hitchcock movie, with the woman on the train.'

' _The Lady Vanishes_?'

Barton blinks. 'Uh, yeah. How did you know that?'

'It came out a few years ago. For me, I mean,' Steve says. 'Before the war, I think.'

'Oh. But yeah, anyway, I looked for him and no one even fucking knew a guy called James Barnes. Thought I was going insane at first. So then I asked around about Codename Winter Soldier instead. Now I kinda wish I didn't. There's a bunch of urban legends about him, you know, and that's it. No one knows when he first started working for SHIELD, but what people agree on is that there is no fucking way he should look like a kid in his early twenties.'

'I don't understand.'

'Some agents told me they saw him once in the 80s,' says Barton. 'Before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Just once, though, maybe like over a week or so. That's the one thing everyone agreed on. He's never around for more than a couple weeks. Pretty much turns up, completes the mission and that's all you see of him until the next time. Which, I got the impression that he doesn't get deployed all that often.'

'And you couldn't have told me that before —' Steve bites his tongue before he can say something foolish. 'Before?'

'Would you have listened?'

Before he can reply, Barton rolls his eyes. Fair enough. Steve acknowledges it with a nod and turns to leave.

'Cap —' When Steve stops, Barton's expression almost has an edge of sympathy to it. For all that they fought and managed to survive together Steve doesn't, actually, appreciate it. Sympathy is too close to pity. 'There's one more thing,' Barton says. 'Out there today, and even afterwards… I'm not sure he recognised me. He looked exactly the same as when I last saw him, but I don't think he knew who I was.'

~

The Winter Soldier is a ghost, about as tangible as smoke. Compared to trying to find him, finding Deputy Director Hill is easy. It helps that by the time Steve gets to her, she's expecting him.

'You've been asking questions, Cap,' she welcomes him before Steve has even shut the door. Like Barton, she still has blood and dust on her uniform. It must have been a good few hours since they won, but Steve is already a million miles away. Even his exhaustion is starting to give way to something that feels like whatever it was that propelled him forwards back home. More than once Falsworth said Steve seemed to function on sheer bloody-minded stubbornness.

Steve shrugs. 'Didn't know I wasn't allowed to do that, ma'am.'

'Captain Rogers —'

'Where is he?'

Hill doesn't even blink. 'You know I can't answer that.'

'You could,' says Steve, 'but you won't. There's a difference.'

'No.' She steeples her fingers, and there is a hard twist to her mouth. 'You still don't get it, Cap. Maybe things used to be easier where you're from, but we don't live in a black and white world. We need to operate between shades of grey, and loyalty? Is one of the few commodities we can afford. So I'm not going to compromise myself and the trust put in me just because you formed a personal attachment to an asset.'

Silence hangs heavy and taut between them like an electric wire. Steve is good at reading people; if years of getting the tar beaten out of him didn't teach him enough, then his time kissing babies and posing for pictures did. He's good at reading people and, at times, when he puts his mind to it, he can even pick his battles, and something tells him this is the most definite answer he'll get out of Hill.

It's not like he can win all the time, and it's not like he doesn't have any other options.

'You know, _where I'm from_ we didn't have a lot of use for black and white either,' he says. 'But what's the point of being loyal if you can only think of other people in terms of assets?'

If he surprises any kind of reaction out of her, he doesn't get to see it. He leaves Hill's office feeling her glare burning a hole through his back.

It's starting to feel familiar.

~

For all the big talk, Steve isn't sure where to start looking in earnest. One thing he does know. He needs time and he needs to give it a few nights' rest: for his own system to recharge after the fight in Manhattan, and for tempers to cool after his initial round of going around asking uncomfortable questions about Codename Now You See Me, Now You Don't.

Steve passes out as soon as he sits down on the couch, still fully clothed. When he wakes up the shadows in the living room are long and the light low and dim, the muted orange of sunset — but whether it's the same evening or three days later, he has no idea. Super-metabolism or no, Steve can feel every bone and muscle in his body complaining loudly when he moves. It's a faint but insistent throbbing ache, and if he thought a good night's rest would take away the edge of exhaustion he was wrong.

He strips out of the SHIELD-issue shirt and khakis and stumbles into the shower. Scalding hot water against his skin finally jerks him awake, fully awake, and with a relieved groan Steve props himself up against the tiled wall and breathes.

(In and out. Slow and easy, just like his mother taught him.)

He gets out before he can fall asleep on his feet, lulled by the monotonous hum of water. Drowning in the shower doesn't hold much appeal, after all he's been through in the past few days. Maybe he could chalk the last two weeks up to it, too. Waking up in a nightmare of a future, never really sure if he's dead or alive or hallucinating or not. Vague maybe-memories, maybe-dreams of ice and drowning and death that wouldn't come, no matter how much he wished it would; the things he doesn't tell his therapist and tries to forget about and knows he never will.

After all that — he kind of wants to live, if only out of spite or some intrinsic pigheadedness that no back alley beatings could ever cure him of.

He towels off and gets dressed in the first pair of sweatpants he can find, still more than a little dazed. When he checks the time and date on his phone, it just makes him want to curl up again and pretend to be dead for a week; it's only been a day. Sure, he slept for over twenty four hours, but he knows he could sleep twice as much and still not be rested.

Some instincts don't dull just because he's tired, though. He hears the soft noise in the hallway and goes from a daze to full working order in point second flat, and doesn't have to think about it: moving on automatic he grabs the gun from under the coffee table and crosses the living room in three long strides.

The hallway is empty when Steve sweeps it, his breathing steady but adrenaline buzzing under his skin.

Then he sees it: a thin manila folder, one of the corners still under the door.

'Barton,' Steve whispers, though even as he says it he's not so sure Barton _was_ the one. It could have been Hill. Maybe Steve did manage to shake her out of her comfort zone, after all.

Shifting the gun to one hand, Steve moves to pick up the folder. It's light, and when he lifts it a grainy faded photograph falls out from beneath the cover and drifts to the floor face-down. His heart in his throat, Steve turns the folder to see the title emblazoned on the front in red capitals.

_PROJECT WINTER SOLDIER_  
 _1948-1989_

Steve finds himself breathing fast. When he crouches down to turn over the photo, his breath catches.

It's Bucky. It's Bucky in black and white, looking exactly like he looked in Manhattan yesterday, except there is nothing of the charm and smirk and rakishness in his expression. His hair is a little longer, curling at his temples, and his eyes are cold as he gazes straight into the camera with a thousand-yard stare that is enough to freeze the blood in Steve's veins. Bucky's mouth is set in a thin line, and he's dressed in fatigues that to Steve are achingly familiar. The left sleeve is pinned at the shoulder; his arm is missing.

On the reverse side there is a note scribbled in faded blue pen, and Steve grips the picture hard enough his knuckles go white when he reads: _Subject 21, initial mental conditioning - successful, cf. Dr Hastings' notes. 11/08/1948_.

Steve swallows. He forces his breathing under control. He has nowhere to holster the gun and he's not stupid enough to shove it under the waistband of his pants (if any of his drill instructors saw something so unprofessional they'd expire, the poor bastards), so he shoves the picture back into the folder and carries it in his free hand to the living room.

It's a minute's work to get rid of the useless clutter that somehow managed to end up on the coffee table. After a moment's thought, Steve leaves the gun and the file and goes to the kitchen to make himself coffee; he needs to be up for this, really awake, focussed and clear-headed.

As he watches the water boil, he can't help but wonder what he's getting himself into. Then he thinks about Bucky as he'd been in Manhattan, in the shawarma joint, when he touched Steve with complete ease. He thinks about that small, heady feeling he's only ever had once before in his life at Camp Lehigh and in a bar in London, driving at breakneck speed across an airstrip in the Alps. He thought he missed his chance at something good, something right.

Just because something could turn out to be a tremendously bad idea has never stopped Steve before.

~

Retrieval Report, [redacted]/1944  
Initial search for weaponry left after Cpt Rogers' attack was unsuccessful. It has been deemed that a specialised SSR science team should be dispatched to the scene for a more in-depth investigation.

Among the items we have managed to salvage there is one that should be of particular interest to Col Phillips. Included are the preliminary medical report on the subject, as well as prognoses regarding the subject's recovery and potential usefulness to the SSR. It is without question that he has sustained extensive damage; after two weeks he is still only able to relay his name, rank and number. The medical staff has expressed hope that electroconvulsive therapy might help restore him to a more amenable condition.

[redacted]  
Deputy Head of SSR Counter-Intelligence Division

~

[redacted]/1945

Following the Potsdam Conference ('Berlin Conference' in SSR reports Sept.-Nov. 1945) it has been agreed that Weapon II Project shall be suspended. Subjects 1-19 have been euthanised. Subject 20 has retained basic motor function but his mental faculties are those of a child. The only success has been achieved with Subject 21, however with the programme's closing the progress is of no consequence.

Since the Nazi experimentation has yielded results worth investigating at a possible later date, Subject 21 has been put into stasis (cf. 12/12/1944 SSR report on Stark Industries Cryostatic Chambers for detailed instructions on the retrieval process).

Dr A. Sobotka  
Biological and Chemical Warfare Division  
Strategic Scientific Reserve

~

27/04/1948  
To: Cpt A. Dugan, M. Carter  
Subject: Discontinued SSR Research 1942-1945

I regret to inform you that of the information requested by your Department, the only remaining research project is Weapon II. A package containing all that we have managed to collect has been dispatched along with instructions, as well as tangential and fringe research conducted at the time.

It is my hope that your endeavours are successful, and Weapon II can be used successfully and to great effect. The potential, as they say, is there. Given proper funding and motivation, I believe you might have found precisely the secret weapon you have been looking for.

Kind regards,  
Dr G. A. Marcel  
Archives and Research Department  
Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division

~

Collected notes of Dr Elizabeth Hastings, 1948-1950

— We have been successful in retrieving Dr Marcel's package. Subject 21's identity has been established as one James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant in the 107th Infantry. It is also the name he has given the team tasked with establishing contact, which leaves me hopeful. The damage done to him through the SSR's crude methods of treatment is not irreparable and, with proper conditioning and socialisation, Subject 21 might be useful in the field.

— After much debate and bureaucratic hassle, our undertaking has been dubbed PROJECT WINTER SOLDIER. It does seem fitting. Subject 21 is fully conscious and aware. He retains some confusion as to the exact time and date but it is of no real importance as he is kept in the research facility and supervised closely.

— It seems that Subject 21 has lied on his enlistment form. He has confessed this to Dr Liu, in whom he expresses a level of interest as well as trust (!! corroborate Liu's notes re: his relationship with the subject). With this new information we have established that at the time of his capture by German forces, Subject 21 was eighteen years of age. I believe this to be a stroke of luck in our favour, as a younger recruit should be much more adaptable and susceptible to less indelicate forms of conditioning.

— He is taking well to all forms of physical training. SI prototype prosthetic in full working order.

— Subject 21 is stable. As predicted, his age and relative lack of experience render him particularly receptive to mental conditioning. V. high level of success with sensory deprivation followed by careful positive reinforcement. Emotional vulnerability following longer periods spent in the sensory deprivation tank should not be confused with weakness. Subject still retains all his fighting abilities as well as instinct.

— The most successful method of treatment seems to be operant conditioning. Subject is susceptive to the standard reinforcement/punishment model. With proper stimuli, it seems we will not need to utilise the experimental Stark Industries memory alteration device; Subject 21 has internalised his experiences of the war and, in fact, has found them highly motivational. I am hesitant to call the project a success across the board but, if my predictions are correct, I believe Codename Winter Soldier might be able to run missions before the end of the year.

— Due to unforeseen circumstances, Dr Liu's contract with SHIELD has been terminated.

— Long-term punishment has best effects when administered in Room 001. Subject has so far displayed crippling phobias of enclosed spaces and water/drowning. Both were used effectively to evoke a fear response so overwhelming the subject was unable to use his fighting abilities. Thanks to this, we now have a specific obstacle to overcome of which we were not aware before. It is necessary to eradicate these weaknesses from Subject 21's psyche before he can be approved for use in the field. It has been agreed that we will expose him to the phobia triggers for a prolonged time.

— After four weeks of testing, Subject 21 has been deemed suitable for use in the field.

— To my distress and disappointment, Subject 21 has been put into stasis. Our superiors consider him too valuable for what has been termed "everyday deployment". After two years of working with Subject 21 I have to admit that it is, in a way, gratifying to know our superiors are so impressed with the results of Project Winter Soldier. It is my only hope to live long enough to see him deployed.

~

Field report: St Petersburg, 31/01/1954  
Target(s): Gen. Vasily Ilyich Domagarov

Target eliminated without incident. Predicted retaliation; suggested heightened security wrt SHIELD operatives Level IX and above.

~

Field report: Szeged, 18/09/1956  
Target(s): Miklós Szarvas

Target eliminated without incident. Collateral damage acceptable.

~

Field report: West Berlin, 01/11/1958  
Target(s): [name redacted]

Target eliminated without incident. Collateral damage acceptable.

~

Field report: Krakow, 16/06/1962  
Target(s):  
Male: Eugeniusz Bobrowski; Cyprian Kołodziejczak; Andrzej Magusiewicz; Kacper Wójcik  
Female: Anna Cerekwicka; Magdalena Dobrowolska; Joanna Górny; Maria Kłopotek; Renata Wójcik; Małgorzata Zamoyska

All targets eliminated without incident.

~

Field report: Washington, D.C., 04/10/1968  
Target(s): David Cross*, Martin Foyet*

Both targets eliminated with prejudice. See Incident Report #46b/1968 for more information re: codename Winter Soldier's performance on American soil.

*) Confirmed alias. Awaiting corroboration from Counter-Intelligence Division.

~

Field report: Skopje, 19/08/1972  
Target(s): Yelena Drakovna Belova*

Target eliminated without incident.

*) Presumed alias.

~

Field report: Tehran, 27/02/1979  
Target(s): [twenty-one names redacted]

All targets eliminated without incident. Collateral damage of ninety-two. SHIELD operatives undercover at the scene have successfully redirected the local authorities' suspicion towards the KGB.

~

Field report: New York City, 15/03/1987  
Target(s):  
Male: [name redacted]  
Female: [name redacted]

Both targets eliminated without —

~

Steve throws the file on the coffee table, papers scattering all over it and the floor. He's barely breathing and blood is roaring in his ears and, when he gets to his feet, there is a moment when his head spins and he thinks he might throw up. Just to keep himself from yelling, he presses the insides of his palms against his eyes, and the bright explosions behind his eyelids are enough to distract him from the nausea crawling up his throat.

It's — it's too much. He never asked —

Except he did. He wanted information. He wanted intel. He wanted more background on Bucky and, god, isn't this all the background a man could ever ask for?

SHIELD, or rather SSR at first, took twenty one American soldiers and turned them into guinea pigs. Weapon II Project. _Subject 21_ , like that would take away all that pesky humanity and make the people they experimented on into something less. Steve wonders; he can't not. He wonders if the twenty one subjects were just those who survived some initial screening. He wonders how the "operant conditioning" worked. Is that supposed to be some kind of politically correct term for brainwashing? Months of experiments — and, god, even Dr Hastings called SSR's methods crude — followed by two years of _conditioning_ and _training_.

No wonder Bucky looked so young in Manhattan. If they kept him in stasis all this time, didn't even give him time to adapt properly, he couldn't have aged more than a few months. That would make him, what, twenty at most? Something like that. There are photographs in the folder, but after looking at each once Steve turned all of them face-down.

He has information. He probably has more than he bargained for, but the only question remaining is —

Does this change anything?

Should it?

Steve wanted to find the Winter Soldier because for the first time since he woke up in the future he felt connected to someone. Brief as it was, Steve was so sure — maybe the same way he was sure with Peggy, once upon a time.

He wanted to find the Winter Soldier and instead he found someone more like himself than any other person should have a right to be, given the circumstances that landed Steve in the twenty-first century.

He wanted to find the Winter Soldier and instead he found another man out of time, an enigma that resolved itself into a tangle of barbed wire and a prisoner of war, turned prisoner of his own government, turned casualty of the Cold War (eight deployments; almost forty targets, countless collateral and Steve has to ask himself on whose hands all this blood is — America? SHIELD? Is there a guilty party in all of this, really, since the men who gave the orders are probably old or long dead?).

His hands are shaking but he forces them into stillness.

It's been twenty-four hours since the attack on Manhattan. If the files he read are anything to go by, the Winter Soldier should be in cold storage, or about to be put there.

Steve doesn't need to think twice.

Yeah, what he knows now changes things. It changes things dramatically.

There is a spare uniform in his closet, a modern Army uniform tailored for him. Steve doesn't put it on. He gets dressed in civilian clothes because he's not acting as Captain America or even as a soldier. He's doing this…well, he could lie to himself and say he's doing it for Sergeant James Barnes, formerly of the 107th Infantry, but the truth is that Steve is doing this for himself and there is no point in pretending otherwise.

The SSR must have found Bucky in the factory Steve and the POWs left bombed out. He was so close; it hurts, now, to realise that he could have saved Bucky before his nightmare and his long service ever even started. But, just like pretending he's driven by some great altruism here, it's pointless to dwell on could-have-beens.

He has a chance to act now and he's taking it because he thinks Sergeant James Barnes is damn well worth it.

~

His plan amounts to storming into headquarters, demanding to know where the Winter Soldier is kept in stasis and not taking confusion or evasions for an answer.

That's his plan, but it falls flat when Steve walks into the Times Square SHIELD building to the deafening wail of alarm sirens and flashing red lights. The place is a mess, agents running in all directions and more than one looking around in abject bewilderment. It reminds Steve of the time he broke out of this place, kneeing and elbowing his way through a sea of men and women in black suits.

'All operatives,' calls a mechanical female voice, 'Code Alpha White. All operatives, Code Alpha White.'

The elevators are down for the count and, as Steve stands still, trying to regroup and decide if he wants to get himself into yet another hot mess, there is a grating metallic screech — when Steve turns, a blank grey wall comes down over the main entrance, and everything goes dark until emergency lights kick in, drenching everything in eerie green and red. No one panics. After a moment of confusion people seem to get a grip on themselves and start moving with more purpose.

Steve goes for the safest bet: Fury's office. If there's one person who can tell him what the hell is going on this time and if Steve needs to suit up (he'd do it; he knows he'd do it, just like he knows Fury would have no compunctions about guilt-tripping him into doing it if Steve made like he wasn't eager), it's Director Fury. A cynical part of Steve wonders if alarms go off around here on a daily basis or if he's just unlucky enough to have stumbled across another inter-dimensional space alien attack.

He's all the way to the fourth floor, going against the flow of agents running downstairs, when he hears the yelling. At first he's sure it's just Hill trying to be heard over the alarm, but then he gets close enough that words start to register and he almost freezes — and then starts running faster.

'— was told he was contained,' Hill is saying, followed by Fury's exasperated, 'The Winter Soldier has gone _rogue_ , how fucking contained does that sound to you?'

When Steve rounds the corner, it's to the sight of Hill shutting the door to Fury's office with much more force than is necessary; the bang is still audible over the sirens and people shouting downstairs. She comes to a sudden stop when she sees Steve, her eyes going wide and hands fisting at her sides. Steve stands in the corridor, breathing fast. He has no idea what his face betrays.

'Rogers,' she starts, an unidentifiable shadow passing over her face. 'You're coming with me.'

There is not much Steve can say to that, even though he's pretty sure Deputy Director Hill (or Nick Fury, for that matter) doesn't have any real authority over him. But if this is about the Winter Soldier, about the Winter Soldier going rogue — and Steve doesn't know what that means, is terrified to even wonder —

'Yes, ma'am,' he barks, and follows her down the fire stairwell to the sub-basement levels.

As soon as they get below ground floor, things go unnaturally quiet. The alarms are dulled and muted, turned into a reverberating throb that Steve can feel under his skin. The lights are dim, yellow and somehow dirty, and Hill leads the two of them away and further into the bowels of what looks like an underground facility the Times Square headquarters might as well have been built to mask. There are corridors on all sides, one leading into the other, and the thought of just how big this place could be sends shivers down Steve's spine.

The first agent they find is unconscious. She's propped up against the wall, stripped down to her underwear. Her weapons are missing. It's Hill who bends down to check her pulse, and her shoulders slump in defeat when she finds it.

'Shouldn't you call for someone to help her?' Steve asks, when Hill straightens and turns back in the direction they were headed.

She shakes her head. 'Comms don't work down here. He's the priority now. And I'm hoping you're all the backup I might need,' she throws over her shoulder with an attempt at a smile. It doesn't reach her eyes, but Steve wasn't expecting it to.

Considering what he has read about the Winter Soldier, his training and his deployments, Steve wonders if he really would be able to take him.

The second agent is unconscious too but, when they get to the third one, Hill's shoulders tense and her mouth is a thin white line. She shakes her head when Steve moves to check the agent's vitals himself.

'It's just through here.'

Steve forces himself to look away from the body on the floor, and follows Hill into a room on the left. Two more dead agents wait for them there. One is a clean kill, head twisted to the side and the body laid carefully on the floor; the other is something else entirely. His throat is ripped out, blood all over the front of his uniform and the floor around him, his eyes still wide and terrified. Steve swallows compulsively before he's sure his voice will come out steady.

'He must have been the first,' he says, nodding at the massacred body at his feet. Hill looks up, frowning, from where she's crouched next to the other one. 'It was — not self-defence but definitely self-preservation instinct. The second was quick and clean. So was the third one. The fourth, he left alive.'

Hill hums in assent. She gets up and dusts off her hands. 'That makes sense. Also explains why he stole a female operative's uniform. He wasn't thinking clear enough before that, and then —'

'A trained soldier wouldn't double back. No time.'

'No,' Hill agrees.

In the centre of the room, silent and inactive machinery is surrounding what Steve knows very well must be a cryostasis chamber. It's sleek and futuristic-looking; probably not the model first used on Subject 21. There are cables on the floor, and a pool of water reflecting the side of the chamber. There is also something that to Steve's untrained eye looks like a power generator of some kind, visibly more dated than the other machinery in the room. Hill moves towards it without even looking at the chamber itself. She prods at the generator. Steve shifts from foot to foot.

'Jesus fuck,' Hill whispers after a moment, rubbing the bridge of her nose. At Steve's questioning look, she breathes out a tired sigh. 'An hour and a half ago there was a blackout. Fourteen seconds without power. When that happens, the cryo unit is supposed to reroute itself to the backup generator.' She nods at it. 'Except this one's fried, and it looks like it's been fried for some time. Some incompetent moron must have forgot to check when they were doing maintenance on the rest of this stuff.'

Steve starts to understand. 'And when the unit couldn't draw power from the backup generator…?'

'It defaulted to defrosting the person inside. Christ. He was barely put under. It takes some four to five days to get the body temperature low enough without risking tissue damage.'

'If that was an hour and a half ago, why's it taken so long for the alarm to start?'

'Shift change at the surveillance stations,' says Hill distractedly.

A power outage. A shift change. The Winter Soldier being not-quite-frozen yet. It all seems very conveniently timed, but Steve knows better than to open his mouth.

But the puzzle pieces are finally falling into place, and he realises — he _knows_ — that it can't have been Barton or Hill who left the Winter Soldier files literally on his doorstep.

~

Fury is not surprised to see him but, if there is one thing Steve has learned about Nick Fury, it is that not much surprises him. He stands behind his desk facing the wall of windows overlooking Times Square, hands crossed at his lower back. His posture is that of a soldier at rest.

Instead of slamming the door like an insolent child, Steve closes it and waits. His jaw is clenched tight enough that it aches but he waits.

Eventually: 'The Cold War was nothing like any of the wars we fought before that,' says Fury. Steve frowns. He didn't come here for a lecture; he came here to get some answers. He bites his tongue and, again, waits for Fury to go on. 'Captain America was exactly what was needed in the 40s. You were perfect for your time, Cap. Except times changed. There was talk about another Project Rebirth, maybe putting some poor bastard in the spangly getup again, but ultimately, when the Marshall Plan rolled around, what America needed wasn't someone like you. We didn't need a symbol.'

'You needed a weapon,' Steve says, trying to sound neutral. Weapon II Project started in 1944, four full years before the goddamn Marshall Plan. Steve might be new in this place but he brushed up on his history.

Fury turns to face him, then, and, for a moment, Steve thinks there is something honest in his expression. It's only a split-second, though, and he might have imagined it.

'The thing about weapons,' says Fury, 'is that they're tools. And tools outlive their usefulness.' He slides a thin manila folder across his desk. Steve doesn't move an inch. 'We live in a time where it's much harder to get away with brainwashed assassins running around and the Helsinki Group is already watching our hands. Now, there is also you and the rest of the Avengers. Under the circumstances, the World Security Council would have the Winter Soldier euthanised.'

'You disagreed?'

Fury lifts an eyebrow. It speaks volumes. 'I think he's earned his retirement.'

'You set this whole thing up,' Steve says. It comes out bitter, but to hell with it. Of course Fury set them up, of course he wanted Steve to dig into the Winter Soldier's history. It was too easy from the start. _Earned his retirement_? More like earned his freedom. Steve doesn't know what's worse: the fact that this might be as close as Fury could ever get to doing the right thing with his hands tied or the fact that this — all of this —

'Was this a test?' Steve demands.

Fury keeps looking at him, expression blank. 'Isn't everything?'

It's too much. Steve moves closer to the desk to grab the file, just to occupy his hands. There is nothing on the front page, and he can't bring himself to see what's inside; not with Fury watching him like a hawk, and not when Steve doesn't know if he can trust himself to stay as calm as he'd like.

'The first thing he did was disable the GPS transmitter in his left arm,' Fury says. 'He wasn't supposed to know about it. Four hours later he disabled — or cut out — the transmitter in his right shoulder. He wasn't supposed to know about that, either. I have no clue where he is but I'm giving you my wild-ass educated guesses.' He nods at the file that Steve holds in hands that do not shake.

Steve can feel his back going a little straighter. 'I'm not gonna bring him in.' _I'm not your lackey_ , he wants to add, but bites his tongue and reminds himself that Fury is on his side on this one.

'I'm not asking you to,' he says. 'In fact, what I'm asking is that you stay off the grid if you can, Cap, because that is the only way I'm going to be able to keep interested parties off your backs. I just need you to agree to do one thing.'

It almost makes Steve smile. Yeah, that sounds like SHIELD. Never stop negotiating.

'What is it, sir?'

'When I need you — when I need Captain America — when the _world_ needs Captain America, you're going to have to come in.'

Steve nods. 'You'll know where to find me,' he says.

There's a finality here, Steve realises. He was with SHIELD for two weeks and two days, and now it's over. He wonders briefly what the official party line will be: Captain America gone rogue? Captain America gone senile? He wonders, then finds that he doesn't care.

'Thor will be taking his brother back to Asgard tomorrow morning,' Fury says just as Steve starts gearing himself up to leave. 'The team will all be there, as far as I know. Thought you might want to join them.'

Steve lets out a surprised laugh. To be honest, he hasn't thought about Loki since the last debriefing on the Manhattan situation ended. He smiles.

'Sorry, sir. I think I have a date to catch.'


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so very, very sorry to anyone who was waiting for this story to update for the last...four months? Holy crap. Anyway. This part got away from me a bit, so there is still one more to go. Thanks for bearing with me and my glacial writing pace.
> 
> Lots and lots of thanks to [haipollai](http://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai) for looking this over and deeming it suitable for public consumption.

There is still blood under his fingernails when he gets out of Manhattan, bundled up in a jacket he mugged some poor fucker for. The rattling of the subway car is no louder than the rattling inside his own head, as if there was broken glass scattered inside. His skin feels ill-fitting, stretched too taut over hollow bones.

He remembers his name. He remembers his rank. He remembers the exact number of useable nerve clusters on a human body, and how much pressure to apply to hurt, to paralyse and to kill.

He remembers killing, and not much else.

~

New York is different, alien in a way Bucky can't quite describe. Fuller; more crowded. Not louder, though. If there is one constant and unchanging thing about New York City, then it is that it's always a damn cacophony. It would be easy to get lost in it, and that is exactly why Bucky needs to get the hell out.

He steals a car, and it takes him an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how to drive it like a sane person. Usually before missions he'd get briefed on all the technology he might need to use, from phones to the latest models of high-power rifles to suppressors and explosives and forensics. They always kept him on a short leash. He only ever had enough room to move, but not run. Like a hungry dog they'd sic on who they wanted gone but never let inside the house.

There is a bar he stops at that first evening, and the only thing he wants is to order whisky after whisky after goddamn whisky until he can forget — or remember — or both, until he doesn't feel like a tourist inside his own skin.

He orders a coke.

Half hour later he's talking to a guy with a metal ring in his lower lip. Bucky was never that kind of agent, he never ran these kinds of missions, but he's trained for them anyway. They trained him for everything, and all those skills were supposed to keep him alive. You do what you gotta do to survive.

He's been out for less than ten hours, and as he follows the guy into a taxi and then up stairs and into a small, cramped apartment — he knows he won't be able to do it.

Even the thought of somebody's hands on his skin makes him nauseous.

No human being has touched him since 1950, and Bucky — can't think about it now.

The last person he touched was a SHIELD agent he stripped of clothes and weapons, hands shaking, teeth still chattering from the freezing deathly cold of the stasis unit. The person before that… Bucky thinks he snapped his neck. He thinks so. He's not sure. He doesn't remember anything before that, except there was blood under his fingernails and he knows what that means. Oh, he knows.

He knows, so he ran. The last time he hurt one of the agents or scientists in charge of him —

No. Not now.

He knocks the guy out and drags him to bed, changes into his clothes and takes six hundred dollars in cash. He has no idea how much that's worth today, but it's better than nothing. He finds a pair of gloves and takes them, too. Leather would be best, but he'll settle for wool. He looks around the apartment, but finds nothing that could be useful. There is a guitar propped up against one of the walls, some books, all the little details Bucky imagines must make up a life. Then again, how the hell would he know anything about living? The last time he did anything of the kind he was sixteen and lying to enlist.

He does find a bag and stuffs a change of clothes inside. He's gonna need it once he finds a way to get some weapons. It's not that he's vulnerable — he could do plenty damage with his bare hands, and his left arm is in full working order. No; he doesn't feel vulnerable. He feels naked.

By the time he's downstairs, shivering despite it being warm outside, he's breathing a little faster. He's dizzy.

He's free.

~

The next morning finds him hitching a ride out of the city. Once New York is nothing more than spikes of skyscrapers rapidly shrinking in the rear view mirror, Bucky can feel something changing inside him. A tension he never knew he carried drains out of the line of his back, and it's like he is no longer a cornered animal trying to gnaw through its own leg to escape the rusty jaws of a bear trap.

It's easier to breathe, so Bucky does. He watches the horizon pass him by and he breathes.

'What's so funny, kid?' asks the truck's driver.

Bucky blinks as he realises he's been smiling. The expression doesn't feel bad, exactly, even if he's not sure he's doing it right. He probably looks like some kind of freak. When he ducks his head to hide it, hair falls into his eyes and somehow that's funny, too. He smiles wider.

'Nothing, sir.'

'How old are you, anyway?' When Bucky turns to frown at him, the driver shrugs. 'You look kinda young to be doing cross-country hitchhiking, is all.'

'Don't worry, I'm old enough,' Bucky says. He turns back to the window, and that's as far as conversation goes until they stop at a gas station some hundred miles west.

Even if Bucky could, there is no way to explain. He was old enough to go to war — except he wasn't, not even by half. He was old enough for Weapon II, or whatever they called that project — except he wasn't. He was old enough to deploy, time and again, and old enough to kill time and again. He was old enough to stand over a kneeling woman trying to shield her daughter, to grab her by the throat and make the child watch as he strangled her. He was old enough to kill the child.

No one ever told him exact years. He should be twenty, maybe, or maybe a hundred and twenty.

It doesn't matter. What matters is whether he's fit to survive, and the answer to that seems to always be _yes_.

~

He falls into a routine. Being on the run is no different to being on a mission, the kind he ran once or twice: more than a few weeks in the field, stealth recon, limited resources. There are no handlers breathing down his neck, though, and no objective. No orders. Bucky isn't sure, in the first few weeks, how he's even supposed to go on without orders — how he's supposed to function.

He wakes up gasping for air, shaking and sweating, from nightmares about memories of Room 001. There were protocols in place for the occasions when he disobeyed or asked questions or didn't perform satisfactorily, and Bucky remembers every single one of them. Days in the sensory deprivation tank, days kneeling with his hands tied in a cell where they'd filter grating high-pitched noises whenever he started falling asleep, every single time they shoved his head underwater and held him down as he thrashed.

Hours of _negative reinforcement_ , after they caught him sneaking around with one of the scientists.

It made him stronger and more disciplined. It made him the best.

It means he knows what to do now, even lost in a new century with all intel outdated by some twenty-five years.

The world has moved on without him and it never struck Bucky as significant — it kept moving on between the times SHIELD thawed him to run missions — but he feels it now under his skin and in his bones. He doesn't belong and really, he never has. The last place that wanted him and let him be is history.

He obeyed orders for so long that after everything he's done Bucky isn't sure he deserves freedom, not when scared and confused he still defaults to violence, but he lets himself hope that maybe he'll get a month or two. They'll track him down for sure, but maybe he can have a taste of what it's like to have a life and a semblance of control. He doesn't need absolution; he only needs to take in a deep breath and let it out and feel something that could be deliverance.

Everything is new and he's still trying to adjust to technology he can carry around in his pockets, and that is the only excuse he has for how long it takes him to realise he's being tracked.

~

Two weeks it takes him to turn the tables: two weeks of playing cat and mouse at airport terminals, of following leads and leaving dead ends in return, of stalking his hunter the way he'd stalk any other target.

Memories come back gradually. Those oldest are always the most clear, but each mission after was wiped and wiped and wiped again. The attack on Manhattan when they deployed him like any other big hitter was the one they tried to remove most recently and Bucky thinks if it weren't for the stasis unit's malfunction — if he hadn't yet really gone under — he wouldn't remember it even when faced with a trigger.

Steve Rogers is a trigger, for all that his hands are empty as he sits in a small coffee shop in London.

He's the key, and four floors above with binoculars in one hand and a gun in the other (just in case; just in case) Bucky controls his breathing as best as he can and lets the rising tide of memory wash over him. The sound of a voice, hoarse from yelling orders; soot and grime smeared over skin; the smell of blood and sweat and dirt; Bucky remembers the briefing he received before they dropped him into Manhattan, each member of the Avengers Initiative dissected on paper in coldly clinical terms. The only thing these people had in common was that they had issues with authority. Doesn't play well with others; doesn't take well to being ordered; doesn't recognise Earth social hierarchies.

In Captain America's file, it was _Rigid moral code_. Bucky doesn't remember what he took it to mean, but he does remember his incredulity at the sheer idea of there being another soldier out of his time. What were the odds?

Maybe that's why it felt so good to fight next to a man who, by all accounts, should be the exact opposite of the Winter Soldier. Maybe that's why he got rash, why he went completely fucking insane and told Steve his name and then went ahead and offered something he knew he couldn't give (but wanted to, god, how much he wanted to give it — even if he knew it would be the single worst idea he's ever had).

As he watches him now, Bucky wonders how they made Captain America. He knows Steve is the one they called Weapon I; he wonders what was done to him. He and Bucky already seem to have more than is probable in common, but a part of Bucky wants him to have gone through a similar ordeal to get there. He doesn't like the instinct; he doesn't want to be that kind of person. It's there anyway.

He wonders, too, who Steve is working for. He wasn't really enthusiastic about SHIELD from what Bucky remembers of Manhattan, but then he didn't exactly disavow them, either. In the two weeks Bucky followed him, he hasn't made contact with anyone — no handlers or apparent superiors, not even friends. He seems to be all on his own.

 _Seems_ , though, and it's a chance Bucky can't take. If this is all some elaborate con SHIELD is playing to smoke him out and get their hands on him and drag him back kicking and screaming, to wipe him again and again and put him in stasis like a broken toy — Bucky can't take the risk.

At 1436, Steve leaves the coffee shop. He takes a paper coffee cup and a newspaper with him. He didn't set up any meetings today, which means he must be going back to the youth hostel he stays at. Two nights before Bucky snuck in to put a mic in there. Now he waits for Steve to round the corner before he makes it down to the coffee shop and makes a beeline for the counter.

'The guy who just left,' he says, jerking his chin in the general direction. 'What'd he get?'

The woman on the other side of the counter blinks. 'Um. Just plain cappuccino, lots of sugar.'

'I'll take one,' Bucky decides, nodding.

He ignores the woman's baffled look and leaves a neatly folded ten-pound note on the counter, then has to ignore her eyes going comically wide as he refuses the change. She must think he's insane. She's probably right.

The cappuccino is pretty good. Better than the coffee Bucky ever remembers having back home and during the war. He didn't have a lot of opportunities to drink afterwards, but he still remembers the smell and acrid taste of the thick, cold sludge he and the men in his unit passed between themselves in the trenches. This one's too sweet for him, but it makes sense that Steve would need the sugar — faster metabolism, needs the fuel. It was in his file.

Steve's hostel is in a pretty shady neighbourhood near the docks, right opposite a waterfront warehouse closed for renovation. The security is minimal and Bucky didn't even have to knock out the bored-looking guard to sneak past him. He's settled on the top floor with the entire space cleared of all industrial equipment and tools that could be used as offensive weapons. Sleeping on solid concrete isn't the most comfortable, but Bucky's had worse.

Finding someone to sell you a sniper rifle in 21st century London is easier than Bucky would have thought. He has no money to get the kind of infrared scope he'd like, though, not without stealing again — and he'd like to avoid that when possible. Criminal activity is dangerous activity, and that could get him noticed. Instead he managed to find a cheap telephoto lens in a used electronics store.

Bucky sets the half-empty cup on the ground and settles in for day three of surveillance.

Two floors down Steve is in the room he shares with four other tourists who are mostly gone in the afternoons and evenings (two backpackers from Switzerland and a Portuguese couple; none of them connected to any government organisations from what little intel Bucky could find having only a public library with painfully slow if still futuristic-looking computers at his disposal). Bucky never trailed any of them, so he has no idea what young people in London spend their nights doing if they're not asleep. Sightseeing, maybe. Visiting places. Meeting other people.

It all sounds a little abstract.

Steve always stays in, though. He has a mobile phone he rarely uses, a bag with a few changes of clothes and two guns and a tablet. He also has a sketchpad, though somehow he manages to angle it away from the window every time. Bucky has no idea what he draws, but curiosity is eating him alive. It's — strange, and not entirely unpleasant. Interesting is maybe the right word. Steve is interesting and watching him through a telephoto lens is almost like getting to know him.

Today he spreads printouts of files and intel and photos on his bed and goes through it all. It's not the first time. He looks down at the picture before him with an expression Bucky can't read, walks around the room as if trying to think or focus, then comes back to sift through the papers. It lasts anywhere from fifteen minutes to five hours.

In the end he sits down on the floor and puts his face in his hands. Bucky watches him breathe slowly, watches the long line of his back. Even from across the street it's obvious that his shoulders are tense.

Finally, Steve reaches for his phone. Bucky fumbles to get the mic receiver. There is static, and then —

'— know I should've called sooner. I'm sorry.'

Silence.

'Yeah, all right. Fair enough.'

Silence.

'I'm — Christ. I need your help.'

Silence.

'I can't. I'm sorry. Nick Fury might've pulled some strings, but they could still be listening. Can I — could we meet?'

Silence.

'All right. All right. Thank you. I — it's good to hear your voice.'

Steve disconnects the call and sits on the floor for another long moment. Bucky wishes he could see his face. He wishes he had more sophisticated surveillance equipment, because Steve's voice was vulnerable and almost _aching_ and Bucky wants to know who could ever make him sound like that, gut-punched and raw and open all at once. According to the SHIELD files he has no one, and didn't have enough time to form any sort of real human connections.

The Avengers Initiative was supposed to give him that, but he left New York to track Bucky instead.

After four minutes Steve gets off the floor and shrugs into a jacket. He gathers up all the papers and stuffs them in the bag, then puts the bag under his bed. It almost makes Bucky roll his eyes; yeah, like that's gonna stop anyone from prying. Steve locks the door behind himself and takes the stairs two at a time, and it's a sort of nervous energy Bucky hasn't seen yet.

He waits for Steve to wave goodbye to the girl minding the reception desk and disappear through the entrance that leads into the street on the other side of the building. Bucky could tail him, but it's as good a chance as any to check up on the intel Steve has on him.

He disassembles the rifle and the lens and packs them up — then has to laugh, because he's doing exactly what Steve has done moments before. A sniper rifle hidden in a beat-up leather bag is still a sniper rifle in plain sight.

Armed with two knives crossed at his back, Bucky makes his way downstairs. Steve is staying in a room on the first floor, and it's the work of minutes to climb on a dumpster and scale the rusty drainpipe, trying to make as little noise as possible. The hostel is nearly empty, but that's not much of an advantage when any noise would carry across the entire street.

There is a moment when he has to push away from the drainpipe to reach the windowsill on Steve's window and there is an unholy _clang_ ; Bucky freezes, clinging to the sill with his fingers, and waits. He knows he's painfully visible from every angle in the street, and that he'd have to drop down before he could reach for the knives. After an excruciating minute when there is no alarm or any kind of response and the street remains quiet and dull, Bucky starts breathing again.

He pulls himself up and pulls out one of the knives to slide between the window and the frame to lift the rusty hatch keeping it closed. It opens with a quiet creak. Bucky drops to the floor, into an easy crouch. It's a fighting stance; he can't help it, can't help expecting trouble. He leaves the window wide open.

Downstairs in the common room there is laughter and talk. English, French and Japanese. The last time Bucky was here to leave the mic, he went ahead to check the staircase — it turned out to be conveniently loud, old wood groaning beneath even the lightest of footsteps. If anyone comes, Bucky could cross the room in three strides and get out the same way he came in. If he couldn't make it —

The knives pressed against his back are a familiar, comforting weight. He doesn't want to use them. He doesn't want to kill. But if it's a choice between killing and capture, he'll do what he has to do to survive.

The room is oddly clean and tidy, considering only tourists are staying in it. Steve doesn't seem too preoccupied with keeping things neat, but maybe he feels obligated since this isn't his place. His bed has military corners. Bucky smiles. Yeah, he does that too. He learned back in the 107th and it never went away, even though his handlers at — afterwards they didn't care about little details like that, too concerned with the bigger picture.

Bucky kneels on the floor next to Steve's bed. He tugs the bag from under it, and when he unzips it it's to see that the inside is much less pristine than the rest of the room. The clothes are thrown in haphazardly, folders and files are dog-eared and sometimes altogether messy. Once he realises there is nothing in there he hasn't already seen, Bucky only gives the intel cursory attention. It's mostly speculation: maps highlighting the Winter Soldier's past activity, maps predicting his movements and the help he might get.

It's only a little disconcerting for Bucky to see how well Fury seems to know him, or at least know the Winter Soldier. But then — of course he does. Bucky might never have worked directly under him, but he heard Nick Fury's name spoken with near reverence from what must have been late 70s.

Fury was a colonel when Bucky was sent to dispatch the KGB's very own femme fatale, a woman they called Belova, codename Black Widow. He left her broken, bleeding from arteries slashed open. It was precision work, one of his most acclaimed kills. They praised him afterwards. Still put him in stasis as soon as he got back, after seven hours of gruesome interrogation. They wanted to make sure he hadn't given in to the woman's infamous charm. Apparently, it'd been a problem with other operatives.

Not Bucky, though. Never him.

With a tired sigh, he puts away the files.

Steve's sketchbook is buried under more clothes at the bottom of the beg. When Bucky pulls it out, a pencil nearly clatters to the floor before he manages to catch it mid-air. He puts it back in the bag.

The first four pages in the sketchbook are street views; one is from the coffee shop Steve was at today. The people he's drawn have blank faces. It sends a shiver down Bucky's spine; he flips the page. There is a woman, young and somehow proud-looking. She doesn't look modern, not with this hairstyle and definitely not with this kind of uniform. There's so much detail in her eyes they could almost look alive, even in monochrome. A niggling sense of familiarity settles in the pit of Bucky's stomach; he can't shake it. Maybe he met someone who looked a little like her on one of his missions. The sketch isn't signed.

When he flips the page again, his breath catches.

It's him. It's him, even if it's just his profile and the sketch looks halfway done and some of the lines are smudged as if Steve had to redo them more than once. Bucky swallows. The next page is him as well, though this one looks closer to being finished. He recognises the uniform as the one they gave him for the fight in Manhattan; right, of course. It's the only one Steve has seen him in.

He traces the sketch with the tips of his fingers, his own face looking up at him with a cocky smirk. He remembers how the expression felt: a little alien, a little reckless. Good, though. It felt good.

Before he can think it through, Bucky tears the page out — and immediately regrets it as he realises what he's done.

'Shit,' he whispers. 'Shit, shit…'

So much for covert surveillance.

He stuffs the sketchbook back into the bag and shoves it under the bed, and gets out of the room as quickly as he can while staying as _quiet_ as he can. The jump rattles his bones and he nearly trips on the curb, but he needs to get out of sight to feel anything approaching safe.

The sketch is in the back pocket of his trousers, folded neatly three times.

The Winter Soldier isn't impulsive. The Winter Soldier is methodical, careful and measured — he is the epitome of proper preparation preventing poor performance. He's as close to a machine as a human being could get, because he was made this way.

Bucky Barnes, on the other hand —

He paces the length of the warehouse floor, feeling trapped and stupid and doomed. He knows he's fucked up. If this was SHIELD, if he had handlers, they'd have to punish him. A few days in the cell in a stress position so he couldn't get up from his knees. Sensory deprivation tank, maybe.

He's free now, but it's difficult to shake the thrum of anxiety under his skin. Mistakes are always punished; it was one of the few constants in the entire time he was an active operative, even back when SHIELD or Project Winter Soldier didn't exist yet and Bucky was just one of the many poor fuckers the SSR snatched for Weapon II.

The only way he knows how to relax is to sit at the window with his rifle resting on his knees, watching Steve's room through the telephoto lens. It's the force of habit, a sniper's calm, that settles over him and slowly brings his heart rate down to something acceptable. He breathes in and out through his nose and waits.

Steve's roommates are back in before him. They're happy, rowdy and a little drunk. They bring friends.

Bucky doesn't care about them. He takes apart the rifle, then the camera, and puts them away.

That night he dreams about 1949. It was a hot summer. He wasn't allowed outside, but even confined to the research facility he could smell the sweat and dust in the air. There was — a doctor, one of the scientists who worked on Bucky. In the dream Bucky can't remember his name, but then he can't remember his own either. The one thing he does remember is that the doctor had gentle hands, and touched Bucky as if Bucky was worth more than the sum total of people whose blood he could shed; he touched Bucky with purpose and calm and feeling. People, real people, touch each other like that. People who are not machines or weapons, people who have lives and loves.

The dream, as all of them do, is soaked through with blood and screaming and the sound of bones snapping by the time Bucky jerks awake.

He presses his face into the concrete floor of the warehouse and breathes, and tries to remember what it felt like to be touched.

~

Next evening Steve is alone. Earlier that afternoon two of his roommates left with their bags packed, and one of them kissed Steve on the cheek. Bucky didn't bother turning on the mic receiver, so he doesn't know what she told Steve — but it made him smile. He seems to make friends easily, between his sympathetic smile and unfailingly kind eyes. Bucky remembers Manhattan, even if the memory is clouded with the botched wipe and freeze that came after; he remembers Steve fighting, taking charge of both civilians and police and the Avengers themselves, and how he stayed human throughout it all.

Bucky remembers coming on to him. It felt so easy. It felt right. Maybe it was the briefing — the date of birth in the file, and the realisation that Steve got to see the world the way Bucky did, all those years and dead bodies ago.

When he's alone, Steve relaxes. He pulls his shirt over his head and leaves the window wide open. It's a hot night, the air heavy with the promise of a storm; the smell of it is lingering on Bucky's tongue. He wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, and Steve does the same in his room.

He locks the door. Bucky can see a faint sheen of sweat on his collar bone and back. He doesn't know why the sight of Steve lying on the bed with a sketchbook in his lap, sucking on the tip of a pencil, makes him breathe faster — except he knows, of course he does.

They beat sex out of him, because it was the one variable they couldn't prepare for. Extreme aversion therapy, they called it. They did it — it must have been the 50s, back when they were training him nonstop. Bucky never tried anything. It wasn't worth the punishment.

He's free now, though. He's free and in the room across the street the coiled muscle in Steve's arms and back and stomach makes Bucky breathe faster. He presses the flat of his palm against his crotch, already hard.

It's a bad idea. Only an amateur leaves his post on a recon mission, and amateurs get themselves killed, and —

Bucky growls, a hoarse angry noise at the back of his throat. He unzips his trousers and thrusts his hand inside and it hurts — no, it doesn't, it feels good to touch himself like this. The hurt is in his head, nothing more than a memory of it. He shifts to lean back against the wall and behind his closed eyelids he can see Steve; when he thinks about Steve he doesn't have to think about pain and punishment that won't come.

His fingers are moving on automatic and Bucky — the last time he did this felt like it was in another life, but maybe his body still knows what to do. The air fills with the sound of his breathing, pained and shallow, as he jerks off. It lasts minutes and then he's spilling into his own hand, eyes shut tight and face pressed into the wall. He has to tell himself it doesn't hurt. It's true.

Afterwards he kneels on the floor, fear slowly seeping out of his body one tense muscle at a time.

He manages to keep himself from throwing up, but he can't bring himself to look at Steve through the photo lens for the rest of the night. Instead he cleans his guns, sitting on the floor stripped down to his underwear. The repetitive, methodical movements are calming; the concrete is cool against his skin.

~

Steve sets up a meeting in Winchester.

Following him isn't difficult, but getting ready and set presents more of a challenge. Bucky can't take anything larger than a semi-auto, and he only has one shoulder holster. It's still hot outside, but if it's a choice between feeling naked and feeling comfortable, it's not a choice at all. He conceals the gun as best as he can under a worn leather jacket he stole, and tapes one knife to the inside of his forearm and another to his calf.

He keeps a careful distance between himself and Steve as he tracks Steve all the way to Waterloo Station, where they get separated by the midday crowd. Still, Steve is tall enough that he stands out. Bucky pulls his baseball cap low over his eyes as he follows Steve onto the train. One car apart; he spends the entirety of the ride watching the passengers leaving at every stop and watching his back, trying not to look over his shoulder too obviously.

Trains are unsafe. They're relatively small enclosed spaces, hard to leave when the mission is compromised. Nearly impossible to dispose of bodies in, even worse at tracking a target when the tables could be turned any second.

Steve gets off at Southampton Central and Bucky barely makes it through the door as they're sliding shut. He knocks into a man in a business suit crossing the platform and pockets his smartphone, in case he loses Steve and needs directions. Having something so easily traceable in his hand makes Bucky nervous, but he tells himself it's safe. No one would have the time to triangulate his position, and a phone stolen off a passerby can be as secure as a burner.

He's safe, and even if he doesn't feel it — well, it's not like he remembers what it's like to really feel safe in the first place.

The neighbourhood he follows Steve to is well off, though the houses aren't too flashy or big. It lacks the dirt and untidiness Bucky associates with poor city areas but neither does it have a — a flair, or any kind of ostentatiousness he's come to know through some of the missions he's run in the past. The streets are clean and lined with blooming cherry trees, the low hedges are trimmed and the houses themselves are invitingly well-kept. It's the kind of neighbourhood where an operative runs the risk of standing out no matter how carefully he tries to blend in.

Bucky keeps a distance between himself and Steve, and crosses the street when Steve looks over his shoulder at one point. Heart going a mile an hour, Bucky pretends to ring the nearest house's doorbell and checks his watch and makes sure to stand with his back to Steve — and it works, somehow, miraculously.

For all his training and field experience, Steve isn't a spy.

From behind a grey sedan Bucky watches him find the house he's looking for. Even from a distance it's clear that he's nervous: he keeps running his hands through his hair and wiping them on his thighs and stands at the gate for three minutes before he finally squares his shoulders and walks in.

Bucky spends some time looking for CCTV cameras, then even more calculating angles. He needs to know what Steve's meet is about. He needs to know who Steve is meeting. There are people who might give him everything on Bucky, if they're alive.

There is a CCTV camera monitoring the narrow alleyway that runs parallel to the main street, but the trees from people's back yards are overgrown enough that Bucky slips under the radar. He drops the baseball cap in a trash can and considers stripping out of the jacket for easier access to his gun, but decides against it. He has to maintain some sort of cover and a level of plausible deniability, and he read that carrying weapons is illegal in England.

He scales the tall wooden fence and lands in a crouch on the other side, and then —

And then everything happens all at once.

Bucky registers, because he can't register, because it's been beaten into him to assess his surroundings quickly and efficiently: Steve closing the garden door behind himself, head bowed, smiling; the large wicker chair standing on the small deck, with a good 180-degree view of the garden; the woman in the chair, old and brittle, focussing on Bucky even before his feet his the ground; Bucky reaching for his gun even as he feels all air rushing out of his lungs; and Steve lunging in his direction before he freezes when Bucky aims.

'Bucky, no —'

Recognition and memory almost knock him down on his ass, nausea heavy in his throat as he remembers. He _remembers_ Weapon II, just like he remembers the war and the HYDRA factory; he remembers Weapon II and all the experiments, and he remembers being put on ice and thawed again and a man and a woman standing over him, looking at him like a tool to be used. He remembers the pain of being brought out of stasis (primitive, unsafe stasis before technology advanced enough to at least not risk killing him each time he was put under), and the way the man — the man Bucky remembers from before, one of the men in his unit when they got first captured, but he wasn't even twenty and the man was already a vet and then — and then he looked at Bucky with _nothing_. Bucky remembers the preliminary interviews and two years of training, training, nothing but experiments and punishment and killing and _training_ , all the blood, and he remembers the agents' names and ranks at the newly-formed SHIELD. Dugan and —

'Carter,' he chokes out. His body moves on automatic and he has the gun trained on her, right between her eyes. It's his left hand. It doesn't shake.

She lifts her chin, but doesn't move otherwise. 'Winter Soldier.'

Bucky barks out a laugh as he realises it was probably her or Dugan who gave him that name (took away his real name and gave him —)

When Steve moves towards him, Bucky shakes loose the knife taped to his forearm. He holds it in reverse grip and looks at Steve.

'Stay where you are,' he warns.

He sees Steve swallow even as he slowly raises his hands, palms-up.

'You should have told me he was tracking you,' says Carter. Her eyes never leave Bucky's. 'I would have asked Sharon to get more tea.'

Steve swallows again. 'I didn't know. I thought I was going insane.' He looks like he wants to move again, so Bucky lifts the knife higher. Steve stops. 'Do you — do you recognise me?'

Bucky nods.

'You were in my room,' Steve presses. 'It was you, wasn't it. You took the sketch.'

Fuck. Bucky knew he made a mistake. He can feel himself start to breathe faster — fear, maybe, or maybe his system gearing itself up for a fight. He doesn't know how well he'd do against a supersoldier. None of the people he fought and killed were enhanced. But he has two weapons, his left arm, and his hand-to-hand skills. Carter isn't a threat unless she has a gun of her own, but she'd have taken it out by now if she had, and —

'It's okay,' Steve says. 'No, it's okay. Bucky. I'm not here for SHIELD. I'm not working for them. I'm not gonna try to bring you in.'

There is a long pause. Bucky can hear a car passing by the house, and there is a dog barking in the distance. He's hyperaware of everything around him, and tries to filter out relevant information from clutter but he's too overwhelmed. Too _weak_.

'Is this a test?' he asks. He hates the way it comes out, small and childish.

Something falls in Steve's expression at that, and his voice is all bitter disappointment when he says, 'Everything is.'

Carter flinches.

Bucky doesn't know what does it — the bleakness in Steve's eyes, the defeated slump of his shoulders, the angry twist of his mouth — but realisation hits him in that moment, nearly knocking the breath out of his lungs. Steve's the same. Details and semantics don't matter, not when the bigger picture is clear and staring Bucky in the face. Steve is like him, one way or another. He doesn't talk or act like any of the agents and doctors and scientists who worked on Bucky because he's not one of them, but he was worked on and used, changed and forced to change.

Bucky hasn't felt connected to anyone or anything since before Weapon II. He doesn't know if he even remembers how.

He's not naive. He's not trusting. He's not anything, really, man or weapon or soldier or spy. It would take another person to make him a real live boy.

Bucky lowers the knife, and then he lowers the gun.

~

'I would apologise,' says Carter that evening. Steve and Carter's niece are packing essentials for a trip across the Channel and after watching them for some time Bucky drifted to the ground floor sitting room. Carter was in the tall chair, looking through a photo album. She didn't look up, just beckoned at Bucky and he went — old instincts die hard. He's sitting on the floor with his back to the side of the chair. 'And the truth is that I am sorry. But you have to know I'd do it all again.'

Bucky nods, then remembers she can't see it. 'I know,' he says.

'If it weren't you, it would be another soldier.'

'Yeah. Got unlucky.' Bucky sighs. Every now and then a fine tremor runs through his right hand. It's got to be the adrenaline. It feels like he's been running on adrenaline since the thaw.

Carter says nothing for a long while. Bucky thinks she must have fallen asleep — what is she, eighty? Ninety? — but then he hears her shift in the chair. He wonders how it must feel to be so helpless and dependent. Fragile. Breakable. If Bucky ever had to depend on another person, he'd kill himself first.

Except in the real world everyone depends on someone. Carter on her niece, and it goes both ways. Sharon looks at her aunt like she's hung the moon.

'War, desperation and a sense duty all push us to do things civilians might find abhorrent,' Carter says. 'Sometimes those things register to us as wrong, sometimes they don't. We kill people as a profession. I'm sure it is a very depressing comment on the human condition.'

 _At least you're human_ , Bucky thinks.

Carter goes on: 'You know, the instigators of the entire Weapon II programme were put on trial in the 60s for crimes against humanity. Project Winter Soldier apparently never warranted this kind of response, or maybe it was a well kept secret. Maybe you were too useful. Steve told me what the World Security Council wanted to do now, though. For once I agree with Nick Fury. You served SHIELD for a very long time, James. If helping you run is the only way I can give back some of the life we took from you for king and country, then that's it.'

''S not my name,' Bucky whispers.

'Excuse me?'

'James,' he says. 'It's not my name, or at least not what people called me.'

There is a delicate pause before Carter asks, 'Then what would you like to be called?'

'Bucky. It's Bucky Barnes.'

Another pause, and then Bucky feels it: Carter's hand, dry and brittle, resting on his head. His first instinct is to twist away from the touch, but something about the way Carter gently cards her fingers through his hair makes him stop.

'Very well,' she says. 'Bucky it is, then. I'd say it's a pleasure to meet you, but under the circumstances —'

'Yeah.' Bucky breathes out a laugh. 'No. It's all right, ma'am.'

'Peggy. Please.'

He smiles.

~

He doesn't get a chance to be alone with Steve as he and Sharon keep going over routes and plans and options. The two of them, having only just met a few hours earlier, are already thick as thieves — fair heads close together as they argue over a map Sharon has pulled up on her laptop. Bucky has noticed already that there is something about Steve that makes people predisposed to trust him; he makes allies and friends easily. It's a useful trait.

It could be dangerous.

Both Sharon and Peggy assume he and Steve will be working as a team from now on. Bucky doesn't do or say much to make them think different. He knows he could try losing Steve as soon as they walked out the front gate. He'd probably make it, too. As long as no one tags him with a GPS transmitter, he should be safe.

He wants to try this first, though.

When Sharon sees him hanging back in the doorway, she waves him in. She's nothing like Peggy; even old and fragile, Peggy oozes grace and dignity out of her every pore. Sharon is different. She moves like a soldier and talks like one, and something about her brash no-nonsense attitude calms Bucky. She is probably a very good liar, but she doesn't seem to like playing games with people and that is something Bucky can appreciate.

'Come on,' she says, moving to let Bucky have a better look at the laptop screen. 'You should know where you'll be going once I get you across the Channel.'

Steve lifts his eyes from the laptop. 'You're coming with us?'

'I have the training neither of you do,' she says, shrugging. 'I know how to go underground and not get found. It'll be easier once we're in France, but England could get dicey once MI6 and SHIELD catch up to you. You haven't been very subtle,' she adds. She gives Steve a pointed look. 'Coming here in broad daylight. You know the house is monitored, right?'

Steve sets his jaw. 'Peggy invited me.'

'Never said she didn't. All I'm saying is that we have three, four hours tops before someone at the office connects point A to point B. I'm sure they started paying closer attention to Aunt Peggy as soon as you went rogue.'

'I didn't go _rogue_ ,' Steve argues.

Sharon keeps looking at him until he sighs and gives up, and only then goes on: 'Right, so. Anyway. I mapped out the route that'll get you to Paris. There's an MI6 safe house near Le Havre, I'll get you the access codes. You can take a car from there, just make sure you disable the tracker. There should be some weapons too, in case you need them — which, let's face it, you probably will.'

Bucky files all the information away, the route and the intel. He's never had any real help on any of his missions. They gave him nominal backup a few times, but most of the time they just assigned some rookie so Bucky would train them in field operations. Sharon is right. He hasn't been doing a great job of keeping his head down — he's here now, after all — and for all his good intentions Steve couldn't keep running forever on his own. SHIELD are good, better than good. It would be a matter of time before they tracked them down.

Them. Right.

It's not safe for Bucky to start thinking of them as a team. Making plans is one thing, but getting attached is something else entirely. He still has no idea what Steve's game is.

He gets his chance once Sharon closes the laptop and nods once, decisively.

'Give me half hour to get ready. I'll have to get some stuff for Aunt Peggy so she's safe on her own for a few days.' At that Steve winces. Sharon either doesn't notice or doesn't care. 'Then we're good to go. Do either of you have to go back to London?'

Steve shakes his head. 'Got everything I need with me,' he says.

They both turn to Bucky. He considers — the things left at the warehouse aren't his, just weapons he got for money he stole. The drawing he tore out of Steve's sketchbook is in an inside pocket of his jacket. He says, 'I'm armed,' and leaves it at that.

Once they're alone upstairs with the noises of Sharon talking to her aunt and bustling around the house, there is a moment when Bucky isn't sure what's supposed to happen — in the here and now, in this moment, but also in general.

He tells Steve as much.

Steve looks like he's been expecting it. 'I'm not sure either,' he admits. He smiles, and it's small and self-deprecating. 'Honestly, I wasn't holding out much hope that I'd find you.'

'You didn't,' Bucky points out, folding his arms across his chest. 'I found you first.'

'Yeah, guess that's right.' Steve rolls his eyes. 'Now I'm not sure. You don't have to go with me,' he says, serious again. 'You don't — you don't owe me anything. If you want to keep running on your own, just tell me and I swear I won't follow you. So it's not — it's up to you. I want to help you, but if you don't want me to then I'll —'

'What?' Bucky asks before he can bite his tongue. 'If I don't want to come with you, what're you gonna do?'

Steve laughs mirthlessly. 'Probably go back to New York with my tail between my legs. Maybe even get some therapy. Try to cope like a normal person.'

He doesn't sound very enthusiastic about the idea. There is something miserable, almost defeated about the way he holds himself — tense and stiff as a board, jaw set and back straight like he's waiting for a dressing down from a superior officer. _Like a normal person_ , and Steve's tone means he doesn't consider himself one of those mythical normal people.

Bucky swallows. 'And if I go with you?'

'Then we run together,' says Steve. 'You deserve freedom. I want to help you. We can make it, I know we can.'

'Why?'

'I — what?'

'Why?' Bucky repeats, waving a hand between them. It's a meaningless gesture, and all it does is make Bucky more aware of the few feet of distance between them, the empty room. 'Why are you doing this? What do you care?'

Steve blinks. For a moment he looks at Bucky the same way Sharon looked at him, almost incredulous. 'Why?' he echoes. 'Bucky, I can't _not_ care. We're — we're the same. We were born a few years apart, did you know that? I barely missed you in Europe when you were with the 107th. I was in that factory. I almost — I — it has to mean something. You're the first person in this entire fucking place who made me —' He stops, heat creeping up his neck. He's breathing a little fast. Bucky has never seen Steve get this emotional in all the time he's been tracking him and even before that, in the memories he has from Manhattan. He can't tear his eyes away.

'You made it feel real,' Steve finishes, quieter. 'When we were fighting together. And afterwards. I can't — I can't just throw that away. I can't let that go.'

Real. Bucky is anything but real. He's a ghost of a ghost, and his brain has been washed so many times it's a wonder he can function at all.

He starts moving before he can think better of the impulse that pushes him to do it. Steve's eyes go a little wide when Bucky stands close to him, and he takes in a sharp breath when Bucky reaches out to wrap his fingers around Steve's wrist. Bucky has no clue what he's doing, but he wants to touch Steve, so he does. That's what being free is all about, isn't it? Doing what you want to do and not getting punished for it. And Bucky would be punished. Oh, he knows. Physical contact was off limits unless specified in mission parameters. Physical affection was unthinkable. But Bucky is not that, not any more.

'You should,' he whispers. 'You should let me go. My head's all fucked up, Steve. I could end up hurting you, and I — I don't want that.' He's looking down, so he sees the way Steve fists his free hand and then slowly unclenches his fingers.

'I can take care of myself,' he says. 'Do you think you could trust me?'

No. Not that, not ever. Not another person — that's not how it works. Trust gets you killed, it's the one commodity Bucky could never afford and he doesn't even remember _how_ to trust, anyway.

He nods.

'Then trust me on this.'

Slowly, Steve lifts his free hand. He telegraphs the move like he's trying to tame a sick animal, but Bucky cuts off that train of thought. He's not an animal; not any more and maybe not ever. He can't help but tense up when Steve puts his hand on his shoulder, then slides it up and — oh. He cups the back of Bucky's neck, thumb rubbing small circles against the sensitive skin behind Bucky's ear and it's —

Bucky relaxes almost despite himself, and his eyes drift shut. This must be what weakness feels like, he realises: he's letting another person touch him and wants it and he's ready to ask for more and, surely, that is a weakness.

''Sides,' Steve says, voice gone a little rough, 'back in New York you promised me something.'

Bucky forces his eyes open. Steve is smiling down at him, almost shy. It's —

Bucky remembers. He remembers the way it felt to smirk, open and easy, and gives it his best shot.

'Third date?'

Steve's smile goes up a notch. 'Yeah.' He's taller and has to lean down. They're close enough they're breathing the same air and Bucky feels hot, sweat prickling at the small of his back. In the same moment he wonders how Steve's skin would feel like against his mouth, and how much it would take to break Steve's collar bone.

He's watched Steve fight and knows what moves he would likely make and how he'd try to take Bucky out and that he'd only use nonlethal force. A supersoldier is a threat, difficult to bring down. His enhanced strength would even out the advantage Bucky's left arm usually gives him. If Steve wanted to kill him, incapacitate him, anything like that — if Steve wanted to, Bucky wouldn't go down easy. He'd kill Steve if he had to. It would be hard and long and vicious and bloody and Bucky would kill to stay free, he'd kill Steve — he'd —

He cups Steve's face in both hands and pulls him down the last few inches separating them.

Steve lets out a small noise of surprise, but doesn't lean away. His fingers tighten in Bucky's hair. The kiss is soft and chaste and Bucky isn't even sure what he's doing. It takes a few heartbeats before Steve moves at all, his free hand curling around Bucky's hip. He parts his lips and this time it's Bucky who makes a sound (embarrassing, weak): at the heat, at the touch, at the taste that sends electricity sparking down his spine.

(Bucky knows what an electric shock feels like. This —)

They stand there just kissing for so long that Bucky stops counting seconds. Steve is warmer than any person should be, but it must be the serum. Elevated body temperature. He burns everything faster. Standing so close Bucky wonders, a little dizzy, if he could get singed. Steve's hands on him are unbearably hot and Bucky doesn't ever want it to stop.

Steve pulls back first, taking in small shaky breaths.

'I haven't kissed anyone in almost seventy years,' he whispers. There's colour in his cheeks and Bucky has to fight a childish impulse to touch — and then thinks, _fuck it_. He traces Steve's cheekbone and jaw with the tips of fingers. Steve leans into it like he's starving.

'Worth the wait?'

Steve blinks in confusion, then smiles. The expression that steals over his face makes something hot coil in Bucky's stomach.

'I'd wait another seventy if I had to,' Steve says.

Bucky brushes his thumb over Steve's lower lip. 'You were in that factory. You freed the other prisoners, right?'

'Yeah, I — I'm sorry. I should've —'

'No.' Bucky steps closer. He's hyperaware of all points of contact between them, of Steve's hand gripping his hip tight enough to bruise. 'No. Shoulda, coulda. Don't matter now. You saved them. I just got unlucky.'

It wasn't Hydra that broke Bucky, anyway. It's what came after. Steve is looking at him like he knows exactly what Bucky isn't saying.

'Let me try and save you now, Buck.'

Weak, something whispers at the back of Bucky's head. Steve makes him weak. It would be so easy to give in and follow him.

Before he can say anything, there is a shrill noise as someone rings the doorbell, and then heavy footsteps up the stairs. Bucky jumps back from Steve as if burnt. The door swings open and Sharon, dressed to leave and with a heavy bag thrown over her shoulder, nearly throws herself into the room. If she sees anything amiss, if she picks anything up from Steve's flushed cheeks and Bucky's spooked expression, she doesn't let it show.

'They're here,' she says, low and urgent. 'Took them faster than we counted on.'

Steve swallows. 'MI6?'

'SHIELD.'

Bucky can hear Peggy's voice downstairs — loud and bland, deliberately obnoxious as she keeps however many agents from venturing further inside the house.

'We're not surrounded,' Sharon says. She shuts the door behind herself, drowning out the noises that have already sent Bucky's heart galloping in his chest. She nods at Steve. 'They must not consider you that dangerous, which means they're not on to Barnes yet.'

Bucky reaches for his gun, but Steve stops him. He grabs Bucky's wrist. When Bucky frowns, he just shakes his head.

'No more killing,' he says.

After a beat, Sharon breaks the silence. 'Yeah, let's not give those guys reason to up your threat level. C'mon, I'm getting us out of here.'

~

Instead of taking a train back to London as Bucky would have done, Sharon takes them to the nearest bus stop and from there to the town centre. The late afternoon crowd makes Bucky nervous and he doesn't bother pretending otherwise; he sticks close to Steve and Sharon and keeps touching the grip of the knife he re-taped to the inside of his forearm. He ran a few missions with backup, usually young or promising operatives Bucky was supposed to train. He knows how to work with other people.

Doesn't mean he has to like it. The instinct to run the hell away is constantly _there_ , like spiders under his skin. He has to remind himself all the time that Steve and Sharon and Peggy are on his side, that Sharon is a trained and skilled agent and that Steve is Captain goddamn America. Neither of them are amateurs.

At one point, as if sensing Bucky's anxiety, Steve rests his hand against the small of Bucky's back: light and casual and barely noticeable where they stand in a bus filled with civilians. It makes Bucky tense, but after he forces his body to relax he gets it. The touch is supposed to ground him and once he allows it to, it does.

Sharon gives a small, tense nod of approval. She has to be wondering how much damage Bucky could do if he panicked or snapped. He can't blame her.

It's a short walk from the stop to the train station, but once they're out in the open the silence must get to Steve.

'You know, you're really not much like Peggy at all,' he tells Sharon. She and Bucky both give him flat looks and Steve colours.

Sharon squints up at him. 'I can't even tell if that was supposed to be an insult or a backhanded compliment,' she says.

'What? No! I didn't mean it like that. You're just…different. As in, neutrally. Not good or bad.'

'Pal, you're digging yourself in deeper,' Bucky mutters.

Sharon looks like she's trying not to laugh. 'You really kind of are.'

'You're both terrible,' Steve announces. He wraps himself tighter in his jacket. 'That'll teach me to be nice to either of you.'

At that, Sharon does laugh. 'Oh, good. I lived for the day Captain America would call me a douchebag.'

'At least he's not trying to flirt,' Bucky says, and immediately regrets it. He blushes furiously as Sharon gives the two of them a searching look, but it only lasts a moment before she's snickering like a teenager again. She must have picked up on the signs back in the house after all.

'I've heard some of those stories,' she says, elbowing Steve in the ribs. He glares, but there's no heat in it. Bucky starts to relax again. 'Hey, Steve. The future teach you how to talk dirty yet?'

'I have literally been here a couple weeks.' Steve sniffs in mock indignation. 'This old century prudishness won't just go away because I've seen a few half-naked dames on television. Or guys.'

'Then you have not been watching the right kind of TV,' says Sharon. 'You poor thing.'

'Not like your aunt at all,' Steve says again with a world-weary sigh. This time Bucky laughs right along with Sharon and it's — easy. It's easy when Steve reaches out to wrap his arm around Bucky's waist to pull him closer and Bucky leans against his side, even as his instincts are screaming at him to grab Steve by the throat.

They could be any of the civilian passersby on the street and maybe that's the point. The conversation, the camaraderie, must be on some level a calculated effort on Sharon's part to make them blend in. But there is more than just professional intent in her expression and her eyes are warm. She and Steve are on Bucky's side, or maybe she's on his and Steve's side. Whichever. Once Bucky stops thinking in terms of liabilities and starts to consider _allies_ , the idea stops making him so nervous. He can do allies.

Once he can do allies, maybe he can even do friends.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I owe thanks to haipollai for agreeing to make sure this story is coherent and makes, like, any kind of sense. Thank you as well to lanyon and Renne for being amazing friends; I don't deserve them. And thank you to everyone who stuck with me through this fic. You are all amazing and way, way too kind. ♥

They get on the second train leaving for Dover. Steve wants to take the first to get across the Channel and away from England faster, but both Sharon and Bucky veto that idea. Sharon tells him that even though SHIELD might not be on to them yet, they should still take precautions as if they had the organisation breathing down their necks anyway. The first trains, the first flights out of London — they'd be the ones monitored closely.

The compartment car they find near the end of the train is empty. Sharon locks the door and pulls down the blinds between them and the corridor while Bucky checks the car for any surprises and Steve puts their stuff in the overhead compartments.

'We'll be in Dover before nine, so if we're lucky we'll be crossing the Channel around midnight,' Sharon says. She settles opposite Bucky and Steve and stretches her legs down the length of her seat. 'This is as safe as it gets. There's enough time if either of you want to sleep.'

Steve isn't shocked or offended when Bucky shakes his head. He guesses it will take some time before Bucky can fall asleep around either Sharon or him, whether or not they're on his side. Steve sits with his back to the window and casually throws his legs over Bucky's lap — careful not to be too sudden, careful not to make Bucky feel trapped. They have to get used to each other if they're to go on the run together.

Caught off guard, Bucky stops breathing. Steve watches him tense up and doesn't, _doesn't_ wonder what would happen if Bucky got spooked.

Telegraphing his every move, he turns to Sharon. 'You never told us why you're doing this.'

She shrugs.

'You work for them,' Steve presses. 'I'm pretty sure you're committing treason right now. I might not be an active threat, but when I was leaving New York there was already a task force hunting down the Winter Soldier.'

For a moment she looks old, older than she really is. Steve knows so little about her — and he'd like to. The past few hours feel like a blur, fear and relief bleeding into each other and into the adrenaline Steve's been going on for the past week or so, the time he spent chasing the Winter Soldier not realising he was the one being chased. He's known Sharon for less than a day and already he knows he trusts her, in the same way Peggy swept him off his feet decades ago.

(He doesn't think about Peggy, old and brittle but still undeniably herself. He can't. He avoided even being in the same room with her back in the house, choosing instead to stick close to Sharon. He'd tell himself it's because he knew Bucky and Peggy needed to hash some things out, but he's not that deluded. He was afraid, afraid of Peggy's paper-thin skin and white hair. Afraid of —)

'Yeah, I work for them,' says Sharon. 'But I can think for myself. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to disobey orders, and I've always been okay with that. I trust my aunt and she trusts you. That's good enough for me. Besides,' she adds, quirking a small smile at Bucky, 'I like a challenge. It doesn't get more challenging than helping renegade Captain America and the Winter Soldier go on the run.'

'I'm not —' Steve rakes his fingers through his hair, and doesn't finish.

He is, that's the whole problem. It's an adjustment to think of himself as _renegade_ , gone rogue. This is nothing like disobeying direct orders to save POWs, nothing like disobeying direct orders (even if they came from no one who had authority over him) to try and stop Loki. Sharon isn't the only one committing treason. It's worth it, Steve tells himself. It's the right thing to do.

Sharon looks at him knowingly. They're the same, aren't they? They're loyal, but they can think for themselves.

When they part ways, Sharon hugs them both.

Steve has a secure phone number where he'll be able to reach her and an email address that will be safe to use, and still the only thing he can think of as Bucky tries not to tense up when Sharon touches him is that he hates goodbyes.

~

The motel they stay at in Prague is small and cheap, but the streets on both sides are cobblestone. Steve doesn't understand why Bucky insisted on that until a car passes right outside their room, and the noise is such that it would wake even a heavy sleeper.

Bucky gives him a ghost of a smile. 'Better safe than sorry, right?'

'Right,' Steve echoes. The fact that SHIELD, MI6, Interpol or the CIA wouldn't be impeded by something as prosaic as cobblestones goes unspoken, but maybe it's the illusion of security that matters here. They need it, just for a moment. They have been looking over their shoulders for what feels like months now, even if Steve knows it's been three weeks.

The secure tablet Sharon left them is on the bottom of Steve's bag, under sketches and a first-aid kid and two guns. Sooner or later he's going to have to just get over himself and get online, following Sharon's instructions on how to track down the SHIELD task force's progress. He wonders, because he can't not wonder, if their threat level has been upped yet. He wonders, because he can't not wonder, if SHIELD think of him and the Winter Soldier — of him and _Bucky_ , damn it — as a team, a joint threat, something.

He wonders, and then forces himself to stop.

They won't stay in Prague for more than a few days. They can't stay anywhere that long. Still, here and now it's as safe as it will ever get for either of them again. Brooding on could-have-beens will get them nowhere. All that's left to do is to adapt.

Steve makes a quick coffee run while Bucky secures their room. By the time he's back, Bucky is sitting cross-legged on the floor watching the news on the television. Compared to what Steve's gotten used to in the twenty-first century, the set looks old and beat-up. It's a small comfort to see that not everything in this place is sleek and futuristic, that even things Steve never saw before waking up have a history.

'I got us lunch,' he says. He drops the takeout box on the floor next to Bucky, then puts one coffee cup down with more care. He takes his own — plain black, lots of sugar; he can't get used to anything else — and sits on the bed, close enough that Bucky must feel him but not close enough to touch. Everything is a negotiation with Bucky.

'Thanks.' Bucky doesn't look up from the television.

'What's going on?'

Bucky nods at the screen. 'Your team.'

And it is. It's a live press conference, set in what looks like Central Park. The team is there save for Thor and Steve, looking tense but determined. Stark has the microphone, which doesn't surprise Steve at all; he's the kind of guy who likes the sound of his own voice. Barton and Romanoff are visibly trying to look harmless and more like civilians. Bruce is shifting listlessly from foot to foot. There is also Deputy Director Hill, standing off to the side, and a redheaded woman Steve doesn't recognise.

The whole thing is dubbed in Czech, so Steve has no idea what they're saying. For a moment he wants to ask Bucky if he can read lips, or maybe understand Czech. He stops himself. He doesn't, actually, care all that much.

'They're as much your team as they were mine,' he says instead, nudging Bucky's shoulder with his knee. 'You were there too.'

At that, Bucky cranes his head to look at Steve. 'I'm not a— I don't do teams.'

 _I'm not allowed_. Something knots in the pit of Steve's stomach.

'Hey, these days? Neither do I. It's too late for us, anyway,' he says. He hopes Bucky picks up on the plural. 'All that matters is that you got someone to watch your back.'

He can't see Bucky's expression when he turns back to the screen, but he can feel the way Bucky leans against him, just a little. It's not an admission and it's not even acknowledgment, but maybe it's both those things in Bucky-speak. It's definitely affection, though, and every time Bucky is affectionate in his own way is a sign of progress; it's not like Bucky is getting fixed, but he's _adapting_. Give and take, push-pull, and it's enough that Steve knows he's not the only one who wants to make this — whatever it is between them — work.

They watch the news in comfortable silence for some time, though Steve isn't paying attention to anything other than Bucky and the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, calm and comfortable.

Steve doesn't want to be an optimist; optimism gets people killed. He lets himself hope, though.

~

That night he's falling asleep to Czech-dubbed _Casablanca_ on a channel that seems like it's only playing old movies. Steve knows exactly what will happen; he'd seen it with Gabe in London. They weren't on leave, exactly. The Commandos worked outside standard military hierarchy, and weren't entitled to leave. One time, though, they had two nights before their contact from Trnava could organise transport.

He's dozing when he hears a loud noise in the bathroom, and a muttered curse. Before the action even registers — before he's even properly awake — he's on his feet and moving. Their motel room is small and the bathroom is even smaller. No locks. Privacy is the kind of luxury they can't risk or afford. Still, Steve knocks before coming in.

Questions die in his mouth when he sees Bucky bent over the sink, a pair of scissors in one shaking hand, holding himself up on his bionic arm. Under his palm, the edge of the sink is cracked.

'Bucky.'

As if only then realising that Steve is in the bathroom with him, Bucky jumps. His eyes are wide. Steve lifts his hands palms-up and tries to look nonthreatening. It takes a moment for Bucky to settle down again. He must have been a million miles away in his own head.

'I — sorry,' he says, running his fingers through his hair. 'I was just…' He looks at the scissors he's still gripping, then lets go. They clatter into the sink.

'It's all right,' Steve tells him. He has no idea what else to say. He prays, with everything in him, that Bucky with scissors in a bathroom doesn't equal a suicide attempt. Fear and nausea threaten to choke him up.

Bucky drops his eyes to the floor. He scratches the side of his neck. He doesn't look suicidal, just nervous and more than a little awkward.

'I wanted to cut my hair. 'S harder than it looks, though.' He takes in a deep breath and looks up at Steve. 'Can you — do it for me?'

'You want me to cut your hair,' Steve repeats, blank.

Bucky nods. His back is tense, but he sets his jaw and picks up the scissors and offers them to Steve, handle first. His hand is still. Steve has no idea, no goddamn clue, how much it's taking for Bucky to offer someone a sharp tool that could be used against him. He knows Bucky trusts him, he does know it, but trust is one thing; presenting him with what amounts to a weapon is something else entirely.

'You sure about this?'

Bucky nods again. 'If it's not you, it'll be some stranger. I mean —' He cringes. 'That came out wrong. Sorry. Yeah, I'm sure.'

'I can just tell you what to do,' Steve tries.

'Just take the fucking scissors, Steve.'

Steve takes the scissors. He tells Bucky to get a chair from the bedroom. It takes some manoeuvring, but they manage to squeeze it inside the tiny bathroom so Bucky can sit in front of the sink with enough space that Steve can move comfortably.

He's not feeling very comfortable. His hands aren't shaking, but that doesn't mean much: his hands weren't shaking when he jumped out of a plane over Austria, either. He cards his fingers through Bucky's hair to make him relax and that, at least, works. Tension slowly goes out of the line of his back and his shoulders hunch. He still jumps at the first snap of scissors, but calms down after that.

'How long do you want it to be?' Steve asks.

Bucky shrugs. 'It's getting in my eyes. So…shorter.'

'Thanks. That's really helpful,' says Steve, rolling his eyes. Bucky's shoulders twitch as he tries not to laugh. Who knew, he likes being a brat. It's a good look on him. It's something real, something conditioning couldn't manufacture.

The back and forth lets them settle into a rhythm, something easy and comfortable. Silences are punctuated by the snap of scissors, and the occasional noise of disgust Bucky makes when hair falls down his back to the floor. The movie playing in the bedroom turns into white noise at the edges of Steve's awareness. He tries to be — professional, maybe, in the way he touches Bucky, but it's difficult not to let his hands linger on his shoulders from time to time. It's difficult not to think about how warm Bucky is when he leans back against Steve's front.

And then Steve sees the tattoo.

He forces himself to breathe normally when he cuts the hair at the nape of Bucky's neck — the last of it, otherwise they should be done — and there, almost hidden above his hairline, written in plain black ink that could be pen: _WII-45-21_. Steve doesn't need explanation. The meaning there is obvious.

Weapon II. 1945.

Subject 21.

'Bucky.'

'Hm?'

'Do you —' He doesn't, Steve realises. He doesn't know. For a moment he wonders if it wouldn't be better to keep it that way and spare Bucky yet another reminder that for decades he's been thought of, by his own government, as less than human. But…no. Bucky's been lied to enough, and he doesn't need babysitting. He needs support.

Steve grabs a small hand mirror from one of the drawers on the left.

'Stand up, all right?' When Bucky does, Steve turns him so his back is to the mirror and gives him the other one. 'On the back of your neck.'

Bucky frowns, but looks. His expression turns completely blank, then, and Steve couldn't read it if he tried. He takes a step back to give Bucky space. He has no idea if he should leave him alone or not. He has no idea what to do. Sure, he factored in things going wrong and Bucky's past catching up to them both, be it in residual programming or trauma. Christ, he'd be stupid not to. Still —

He watches Bucky and tries to guess what's going through his head.

After what feels like hours, Bucky lowers the mirror. He leans against the sink and grips it with both hands.

'I want it off,' he says, eyes fixed somewhere on the floor. 'I want this fucking thing off me.'

Steve swallows. 'I don't know —'

'Neither do I,' Bucky snaps. He glares at Steve. 'Cut it out, fucking burn it off, something. I want it _gone_ , I can't — I'm not —'

'No. You're not. What was done to you doesn't define you.'

A moment passes, the silence between them tense like a wire pulled taut and about to snap. It doesn't. Bucky seems to remember to breathe. His mouth twists in an ugly parody of a smile before the fight goes out of him and he slumps down to the floor, pulling up his knees to his chest. Somehow he looks young and too-old at the same time.

He doesn't protest when Steve joins him.

'I thought it was supposed to get easier,' he says, voice low and exhausted and defeated.

Steve reaches out before he can stop himself. He wraps his fingers around Bucky's left ankle and it's the only point of contact between them, but it's enough. It has to be enough; there is nothing Steve could say here, since all reassuring nonsense would be just that. There is no comfort he could offer without lying through his teeth.

They sit in silence for a long while until the noise of the television from the bedroom suddenly turns to piercing white noise and Steve scrambles off the floor to turn it off. He talks Bucky into trying to sleep while he spends the night backlit by the faint sheen from Sharon's tablet, writing and rewriting and rewriting again an email to Nick Fury.

~

He goes to the meet alone, which means that Bucky is tailing him with a gun at the ready, waiting for the first sign of trouble. It's not something they talked about, but then it isn't something that needs to be discussed. It reminds Steve of the fight in Manhattan and how effectively they worked together. They have vastly different but complementary skill sets, and on their own they settle into something like teamwork. Steve will always be the one diving headfirst into trouble, but with Bucky watching his six he knows he'll be fine.

At five to noon he's waiting for the woman at a small cafe in Budapest. In true superspy fashion, Fury didn't give him a name or a description. It's unsettling, and it's like waiting for his own execution — but then Steve remembers that he has his own very lethal guardian angel.

He doesn't have to wait long.

'So you'd be the one,' someone says behind him and a tall, dark woman with a streak of white in her hair sits down in the chair opposite Steve. She has a black trench coat on and judging by the click of her shoes she's wearing high heels. The only word coming to Steve's mind to describe her is _striking_. _Beautiful_ wouldn't account for the threat of danger in the curve of her smile.

Steve nods. 'Ma'am.'

'Please. Skip the pleasantries.' She waves for a waiter, and orders in what to Steve's untrained ear sounds like fluent Hungarian. As soon as the waiter is gone, she steeples her fingers and leans over the table to peer at Steve with open curiosity. 'Nicholas told me a little about your…predicament, shall we say? I do wonder, though. Is he really anything like what they say?'

'Excuse me?'

The woman grins. 'Your lost puppy.'

'No,' Steve says tightly. He knows, he _knows_ it's just stupid spy code, but a cold shiver runs down his spine at the way the woman casually referred to Bucky as a dog. He remembers the tattoo. 'No, he's nothing like what they say.'

He's a human being, for one thing. Steve doesn't say that, but the woman gives him a look that means she knows exactly what he's talking about. She inclines her head in acknowledgment.

'Good to a fault. Dear old Nick warned me about that, too.' She sighs. 'Very well, then. I have a proposition for you, Captain. I'll help you disappear and settle down where no one will find you. It's very sweet of Sharon to try to redirect interested parties' attention, but that won't last forever. I can really take you off the grid.'

'You know Sharon?'

The woman flashes him a grin. Steve waits for a reply, but nothing comes. Before he can say anything else, the woman's order arrives — coffee, looks like. She picks up a spoon and stirs her drink, leisurely and almost bored, but doesn't touch it.

'So if you help us,' Steve says when the silence gets to him, 'what do you want in return?'

She laughs. 'Oh, very good. You're learning. Well, here's the thing. The safest place I can think of for you is South Africa, which I'm sure you and your boy will love. Plenty of tourist attractions, no Cold War or post-Soviet or terrorist activity that would warrant a SHIELD presence. You'll fit right in. However.' She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest, fixing Steve with a frank — and frankly calculating — look. 'My network in Cape Town has been lacking recently. Burnt bridges, all that.'

'You want me to work for you?'

'I want you to, from time to time, be available to run an errand for me. Nothing too violent. Nothing too sordid.'

Steve swallows. It's tempting to say no. Christ, it would be too easy. The whole point of running away is to stay as far away from people like these as possible. He has no reason to trust this woman save for Fury's implicit trust in her. He doesn't even know her name, for god's sake. The thought of being at a strange spy's beck and call fills him with a dark sense of foreboding. It would be like waiting for the other shoe to drop day in, day out. At the same time —

At the same time he and Bucky need to go underground and stay that way, and the woman is right: no matter how good Sharon is, without the help of someone more powerful it's only a matter of time before their luck runs out. They can't just keep moving from country to country like that, either. Bucky won't ever get better if they have to look over their shoulders every ten minutes. Bucky is entitled to some damn peace of mind.

And if Bucky's peace of mind will have to come with Steve making deals with the devil, so be it.

'Fine. I'll do it if you promise you'll keep him out of it.'

'Darling, I have no interest in _him_ ,' says the woman. 'He's too volatile. I've no use for people who don't even have the decency to be predictable.'

'I'm also gonna need your name.'

'Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.'

Steve blinks.

She smiles. 'But since I expect we're going to be good friends, you can call me Val.'

She leaves not long after, her coffee untouched. Steve wonders why she ordered at all, and if the whole charade — the coffee, the Hungarian, the trench coat and high heels — was anything more than smoke and mirrors. Spy games. She left no contact information, but Steve doesn't doubt she's the kind of person who likes to be the one initiating contact. If there is anything Steve has learned about covert operatives is that they live and breathe control: negotiating it, claiming, asserting and reasserting and taking away.

After some time Bucky comes up behind him, loud enough to be heard in the cozy alleyway. He sits in the chair Val has vacated.

'Hey, stranger.'

Bucky rolls his eyes. He peers suspiciously at Val's coffee, then pushes it away. 'You really can't flirt for shit. I don't get why you're still trying. Think you can trust her?'

'No, probably not.' Steve shrugs. 'Not like we have a choice, though. She's going to set us up in Cape Town. You ever been?'

None of the Winter Soldier's mission reports were from the area, so Steve isn't surprised when Bucky shakes his head. 'They mostly deployed me in Europe, once in Iran. Be nice to have a permanent place, though.'

Permanent. Steve wonders if there is anything about their lives that will ever be permanent again — except, if they're lucky as all hell, each other. Something in his expression must be easy to read; Bucky gives him a tired, crooked smirk that still reaches his eyes. Most of his expressions these days do, and Steve wants to think of it as progress.

'Yeah,' Steve says. He catches Bucky's eye and holds his gaze. 'Yeah, it would be.'

~

They're at a youth hostel in Zagreb and Steve wakes up the way he's been waking up for the past week, when the nightmares start. In his dreams he's always drowning and the water is always freezing, always murky and a sickly yellowish green, closing bare inches above him — but it might as well be miles, for all that Steve can't reach up.

He wakes up fighting for breath. The room is dark save for the thin patch of streetlight coming in through the pulled-up curtains. Bucky insists on pulling up the curtains every night; he can't sleep unless it's completely dark. Steve doesn't ask about that, not yet.

When he comes back to himself enough to stop hyperventilating, he realises that Bucky is there. He's sitting cross-legged at the edge of the bed, unmoving. Steve's heart rate spikes, but he forces himself to relax.

'Hey,' he says, voice scratchy from sleep. He lifts himself up on one elbow.

Moving on all fours, nearly silent in the otherwise quiet room, Bucky gets closer. He puts his right hand on Steve's chest, over his heart, feeling his heartbeat. He pushes gently and Steve lies back. 'Do you want me to wake you up next time?'

'No, it's all right. Did I wake you?'

Bucky shakes his head. His fingers tighten in the fabric of Steve's t-shirt, but then relax. 'What do you dream about?' He frowns, and Steve realises it's because he can feel Steve's heart start to beat faster again. The memory of the nightmare is still fresh under his skin; he doesn't even have to close his eyes to see it. He can still remember the weight of water filling his lungs.

'Dying,' he says simply.

There's a beat before Bucky ducks his head, and Steve can just make out the corner of his mouth curling up. 'That's the one thing I don't dream about.'

His touch is warm through the cotton of Steve's shirt as he slides his hand up to Steve's collar bone. He presses the pads of his fingers against the jut of bone, then lower. He presses his thumb lightly against Steve's adam's apple. Steve doesn't need to be told what he dreams about. It's obvious in the way Bucky feels for his pulse, cocking his head to one side as his eyes drop to Steve's neck.

He dreams about killing. He dreams about killing Steve.

Steve swallows. It's probably a bad idea, but letting Bucky get lost in his own head seems like an even worse one, so he reaches out to cup the back of Bucky's neck in a mirror image of Bucky touching him. They're both screwed up six ways to Sunday, but together they're something more than the sum total of their damage.

They're already close, bare inches apart, but it's still like an insurmountable void when Steve pulls Bucky down. The kiss, when it comes, is the driest and most tentative kiss of Steve's life — nothing like what Steve really needs or wants, though he has no idea if that's even close to what Bucky needs or wants. But they've been dancing around each other for days now and something should have happened in that bathroom in Prague but didn't, and Steve knows it's now or never.

A part of him, a sick part of him, wants Bucky to snap. Snap and go for the jugular, go for Steve's throat. Violence Steve knows how to deal with; he's had a lifetime of practice, and only a year or so of being able to stand his own in a fight.

Except this isn't a fight, and Bucky kisses him back. It shouldn't come as a surprise, it's not the first time, but Steve's breath still comes faster when Bucky's hand over his neck tightens. There's no violence in it. There's no threat. Bucky leans over Steve until he's lying half next to, half on top of him and doesn't stop kissing him for a second.

It's almost unreal, the room and the city silent around them, but it sure as hell feels real: Bucky's now-short hair between Steve's fingers and Bucky's free hand inching under his t-shirt and — oh, yeah, that's Bucky pressed hard against his hip. Steve scratches his fingernails right below Bucky's hairline where the tattoo is, and Bucky makes a noise that's either pain or encouragement as he leans even closer, like he's trying to crawl under Steve's skin.

He slides his mouth to Steve's neck and says, low, 'I'm really outta practice, y'know.'

'So am I.' Steve breathes out a laugh. He tips his head back to give Bucky better access, the pressure of Bucky's palm against his trachea heavier. 'You're doing good, you're —'

He never finishes that thought; Bucky chooses that moment to push his knee between Steve's thighs. He knows what he's doing and even the thought that — Steve doesn't know Bucky's history before the war, but if it's anything close to Steve's then oh, he can imagine — is enough to get him from just turned on to hard enough it aches. It's shouldn't be like this, Bucky taking him apart with his hands and his mouth and the push of his thigh against Steve's dick. Bucky goes after him with single-minded determination that is both terrifying and really the opposite.

'You too,' Steve mutters, trying to pull Bucky's pants down. 'Want to feel you.'

Bucky's eyes are wide and bright even in the dim bedroom. He pulls back to undress, quick and efficient, and Steve gets a good look at him. His left side is a patchwork of scars. Of course it is; he'd rely on his bionic arm as an advantage, but the rest of him isn't made of metal. But here, now, he's warm and alive. His skin is only slightly cooler than Steve's — boosted up metabolism, gotta be, burning hotter and faster. He watches Steve strip out of his shirt and tug his pants down, then kick them off. They stare at one another for a moment, not touching, until Bucky growls impatiently and pulls Steve close again.

This time when he kisses Steve it's not dry, and it's not tentative. It's hard, bordering on rough, the hot slide of tongue enough to make Steve's hips jerk and oh, that, that feels real and good and _real_. Steve's hands are shaking when he reaches down to wrap his fingers around them both. He swallows Bucky's moan, a soft shaky noise that makes heat pool in the pit of his stomach.

He'd worry about coming off like a too-eager teenager, but Bucky fares no better. It's been a long time for him, longer than for Steve. He fumbles to get his hands on Steve, graceless, no finesse. There is an edge of desperation to his every touch.

They finish within moments of each other, Bucky's eyes drifting shut as he tenses above Steve. Steve can't tear his eyes away from his face when he feels Bucky spilling hot on both their stomachs. And then Bucky is chasing his mouth again again, reaching down to push Steve's hand away and jerk him off just as hard and insistent as he's kissing him. Having Bucky's attention zeroed in on him with this kind of focus is too much; Steve shakes apart as he comes, one hand fisted in Bucky's hair and the other in the sheets.

'Holy,' Steve manages, trying to remember how to breathe.

Bucky snorts. He grabs for his t-shirt to clean them up, if only a little, and settles back down with his head on Steve's shoulder, their legs tangled together. They should probably shower, but there's a group of American tourists living down the hall who use up all the hot water in the communal bathroom. They can get cleaned up later. Steve runs his fingers through Bucky's hair and smiles up at the ceiling when Bucky leans into the touch like a cat.

He's all loose-limbed and comfortable and Steve would do anything to keep him like this. For a second he thinks that's it, that they'll fall asleep like that. He wouldn't mind. It's rare that Bucky sleeps at the same time Steve does, instead opting for taking shifts sitting by the window with a gun close by. But then Bucky presses his mouth to Steve's shoulder and starts, 'If I go off the rails —'

'Bucky —'

'You know I'm not alright,' he says. There is a naked honesty in his voice that makes Steve want to look away, even though Bucky can't see his face. 'Everything is screwed up and you _know_ I'm a fucking mess. So if I go off the rails, you have to kill —'

'No.'

Bucky sits up. The light from the street lamps catches on his left shoulder. 'I'd rather be dead than — used. Again.'

'Those aren't your only options.' When Bucky shakes his head, Steve sits up too. He doesn't touch Bucky; this isn't the time for affection, and he feels naked and vulnerable. He hasn't felt safe in a long time, so that part at least doesn't change.

There's nothing for him to do but watch as Bucky gets off the bed to pace the length of the room, body language gone guarded but unselfconscious. He doesn't even seem to remember that he's naked. His hand goes to the back of his neck and it looks automatic, but Steve knows it's anything but. Eventually Bucky stops in front of the window, back straight and his hands fisted at his sides. His expression is hidden in shadow when he says, quiet, voice flat:

'When I look at you, all I can see are pressure points and nerve clusters. All I can see is the damage I could do. The better I know you, the better I know how to kill you. I know how to compensate for your enhancements. I know what injuries I'd have to factor in for myself. It'd be over in three, four minutes.'

It's lucky that his eyes aren't on Steve; otherwise he'd see his breathing quicken. Steve tells himself it's not fear, not really.

'You have a choice,' he says. 'You can act on those instincts or not. It's up to you now, Buck, and that's what makes the difference. You always have a choice.'

Bucky ducks his head, shoulders hunching. 'I just don't know which one's right.' He sounds almost scared, but Steve gets it; he can't understand it, but he gets it. If he was used as a weapon, conditioned and frozen and conditioned again, he'd have trouble telling right from wrong too.

Making enough noise to give Bucky warning, he gets up and off the bed and crosses the distance between them in four strides. He still doesn't touch — everything is a negotiation and he's not sure where physical contact is good or bad, but he'd rather err on the side of caution — but the way some tension seeps out of Bucky's shoulders tells him it's enough that he can feel Steve at his back. Knowing that he's a comfort to Bucky makes Steve weak with relief.

'I'll help you,' he says. He doesn't tell Bucky that just the fact that he _wants_ to do the right thing, make the right choices, says something profoundly meaningful about his humanity. It's the last thing he expects when Bucky leans back against him. Without thinking he puts his hands on Bucky's hips, but doesn't pull him any closer.

'We're fucked, aren't we,' Bucky says matter-of-factly.

Steve barks out a laugh. 'Probably,' he admits. 'That's never stopped me before. Any odds are good odds if you play them right.'

He waits for Bucky to call him suicidal, or naive, or too brave for his own good; it doesn't come. Instead Bucky turns until Steve's hands are resting at the small of his back and pushes him back, and back, towards the bed.

~

It rains nearly nonstop the first two weeks they spend in Cape Town. Val's middleman leaves them keys in a postal box that is apparently going to be theirs from now on. There are security cameras inside the post office, but Steve doesn't expect to be going there very often. Bucky sticks close to him all the way from the airport (with fake passports for Guillaume and Thomas Moreau, expatriate brothers from Lyon, France) to their new place — which amounts to a tiny one-bedroom apartment in what looks to be a pretty busy part of town.

It takes six days for Bucky to start getting antsy, longer than they stayed in any one place over the past…god, has it really just been a month? All of that time feels both too fast and too slow, a blur of adrenaline and a constant low-level thrum of anxiety and _what if, what if, what if_.

Steve has no access to the bank account with all his back pay SHIELD set up, and no magical SHIELD-issue plastic bank cards that got him anything he'd needed in New York. They'll run out of cash soon. Steve never thought how comfortable his short time between waking up and the fight in Manhattan has been, for all that he spent it wishing he could drink himself into a stupor. He had everything: food, clothes, roof over his head, and he came to rely on it. Getting used to a good thing was easy even after a lifetime of the opposite.

Val forwarded him a few job openings in the area with trusted colleagues who would politely look the other way if Steve seemed too too weird or too cautious or too obviously not French.

Steve has his own ideas, though. It would be too naive of him and Bucky to try to settle down into something approaching normal. Even safe under Val's protection and with Sharon and Peggy's help, they'd need to be more proactive than simply sitting in their make-believe home, waiting for things to go wrong and for an armed SHIELD or CIA or Interpol tactical team to bust down the door.

And if the idea came to him while he was watching _Casablanca_ , this time dubbed in Macedonian — well, no one has to know.

On day six Steve wakes up to an empty apartment and for a moment panic nearly chokes him up when the first coherent thought he has is that Bucky must have ran. Then he sees the note left under a steaming cup of coffee Bucky stood next to the bed — mattress, actually; they can buy a bed frame later, but for now it's not worth the expense when there is still a possibility that they'll have to hightail it out of Cape Town at any moment.

 _Back soon_ , the note promises in Bucky's chicken scratch, and: _Made breakfast_.

So Steve breathes in and out, grabs the coffee off the floor and gets out of bed.

He has no idea how things will work out. He has no idea if Bucky will stay, and how he thinks of Steve: friend, ally, partner, the nearest warm body to chase away the memories, or maybe the poor bastard dumb enough to risk everything for a promise that was never explicitly given. They spend more nights together than not. That part is good, better than good; Steve wouldn't give it up for anything, the sight and touch and feeling of sweat-slick skin and whispered pleas and prayers and the times they're pressed so close their hearts beat in sync.

Maybe sex won't fix all their problems, but even so it's good for Bucky. It helps him settle more comfortably into who he wants to be in the here and now (not quite the soldier Steve saw in the black and white photos from 1945 and not quite the Winter Soldier and not even, not really, a cross between the two). He's at ease around Steve these days, and one day Steve thinks he'll maybe get to see Bucky with his guard down.

They have all the time in the world.

He's out of the shower and contemplating going for a run when the lock turns in the front door, and even as Steve knows exactly who it is his first instinct is to reach for the closest thing that could be used as a weapon. (There are weapons stashed all over the apartment. Bucky doesn't know about some of Steve's, and Steve is sure it goes both ways. It's alright, though. It's for their own safety.)

'Hey, stranger.' Steve can't help the expression that steals over his face and cares very little that it's probably sappy and ridiculous; he cares very little, because Bucky grins back, throwing the keys and his wallet wherever they'll go.

That's another thing: at home, Bucky stops obsessively cataloguing the placement of all items in a room. He's starting to get _messy_. Steve never thought he'd enjoy picking up dirty socks off the bathroom floor as much as he does, but it means something, all of it means something.

He loses his train of thought when his eyes get stuck on Bucky's sweaty t-shirt. Bucky follows his gaze, and his smile gets an edge of promise.

'Hey yourself,' he says, pulling the shirt over his head as he crosses the room, and then he's right there in Steve's space, hot from the sun and almost giddy with a happy kind of restlessness. He walks Steve backwards towards the bed and pushes him down and this is pretty new. It's day and Bucky is grinning and he straddles Steve's thighs and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him.

Steve hooks his fingers into the waistband of Bucky's jeans and lets it happen. He can't question it, not when Bucky slides his mouth down Steve's neck to bite down, gently, on his collar bone. Steve's breath catches, heart going a mile an hour. He has to bite his tongue on a helpless noise just to force himself to think.

'Hey,' he says when Bucky pushes him to lie back and slides down to the floor to kneel between Steve's legs, 'hey, wait. Everything all right?'

Bucky kisses his abdomen and starts undoing his pants. 'Yep. Happy to see you, that's all.'

Steve smiles at him, feeling stupid with relief and want and something else, something hot and heavy making his throat tight. He runs his fingers through Bucky's hair and doesn't say anything else as Bucky goes down on him. It isn't often that he takes his sweet goddamn time torturing Steve, but he does it now, slow and leisurely and infuriating until Steve breaks into pieces, reduced to choked-back sobs and wordless moans. It's a rush to hear himself beg Bucky to go faster, to let him come, to fucking _do_ something.

Bucky hangs on as long as he can before he stops teasing and finally swallows Steve down, the tip of his nose brushing the coarse hair on Steve's abdomen, and Steve bites down on his fist to keep himself from yelling as he comes.

He lies there for a minute, breathing hard. His thighs are shaking and it feels like he's been run over by a panzer tank. Bucky climbs up on the bed and lets Steve kiss him, messy and slow because he couldn't go for dignified now if he tried. Steve licks the taste of himself from Bucky's mouth and wonders if this is the part in the dream where he wakes up, sweaty and sticky and cold.

He tangles his fingers in Bucky's hair; Bucky hums and lets the kiss get deeper and dirtier, and Steve is ready to hook his legs over Bucky's hips and roll them over and get even, but then his fingers catch on something soft but rough at the back of Bucky's neck — bandage or dressing.

Steve pulls back.

There is colour spilling over Bucky's cheeks that has nothing to do with sex, and he smiles sheepishly. 'I wasn't sure how to tell you.'

'Tell me what?'

With a sigh, Bucky turns to sit between Steve's thighs and ducks his head so Steve can see the dressing over the back of his neck. It covers —

'Can I?' Steve asks. He's pretty sure he knows what he's going to find, and his voice betrays him. Bucky just nods, though, and when Steve pulls back the adhesive edge of the dressing his heart skips a beat.

The Weapon II tattoo is hidden under a new one, black and simplistic. It's a five point star, just big enough that the two points hide the edges of the old ink. The skin around it is an angry red, and Steve resists the urge to touch — it takes a lot, but he manages. Forcing himself to breathe again, he covers the tattoo and smoothes his fingers lightly over the dressing to make sure it sticks.

He wraps his arms around Bucky's waist, loose with his hands crossed over Bucky's abdomen, and rests his forehead against Bucky's shoulder.

After a moment Bucky cracks first. 'All right, you gotta say something.'

'Something,' says Steve.

Bucky snorts. He puts his hands over Steve's to keep him in place. There is nothing untowards about it, but somehow it's more intimate than what Bucky just did for him a minute ago.

'Why the star, though?' Steve asks eventually. 'I don't — you know we're not like that. I don't want to, I don't know, have any claim over you or something.'

'No, it's not that.' Bucky runs his right thumb over Steve's knuckles, flesh and blood over flesh and blood. Steve is glad they can't see each other's expressions. 'It's like…I wake up sometimes and I want to run. Run and run and never stop. It's all I know. And those times in my head I keep telling myself you'll betray me, or you'll bring me back to SHIELD, and that I can't trust you, and that I should just kill you and get on my merry way.'

'I'd never,' Steve says. 'Buck, I would never. You have to know that.'

'I do. I know. I'm not just instinct, right? You said so yourself. I have a choice. I just need a reminder.' He shrugs, his hands over Steve's tightening. 'I need to remember who I am, and I need to remember who you are.'

'And who am I?'

Bucky laughs again. He tips his head back, and Steve can feel his shoulders shifting. 'My knight in shining whatever, I'm guessing,' he says. He sounds so fond, so affectionate. He's the most real person Steve has ever met, and Steve aches with how much he needs Bucky to understand it. 'Your armour's kinda rusty, but I'll take it.'

He turns without getting up, until Steve's hands rest on his hips and he's sitting cross-legged between Steve's spread thighs. Letting out a sigh he didn't know he was holding, Steve wonders for the first time which one of them ever really needed saving — or at least, which one of them needed to be saved _more_. He used to think it was Bucky, but he's not so sure any more. His throat is tight with emotion and he's not brave enough to look Bucky in the eye.

Bucky doesn't seem to mind. His hands are careful and relentless when he smoothes them down Steve's sides, still warm from his time outside. He noses at Steve's neck, at the soft skin behind his ear, until Steve finally gives up. He pulls Bucky up by the back of the neck and cups his face in both hands.

'You're alright, Buck,' he whispers. 'We're gonna be alright.'

Bucky leans in to kiss him, and whatever their odds might be Steve knows they have enough faith to get them through.

~

 **Two months later**.

The address Val gave him turns out to be for a hole-in-the-wall bar with no sign or name; if Nick didn't know any better he'd call it a standard shady spy dump. Its only redeeming quality is the proximity to the ocean. Inside the place is nearly deserted save for two hunched-over early drinkers.

In his line of work, Nick Fury has last been surprised in the late 80s.

He's definitely surprised now when he sees the Winter Soldier behind the counter, lighting up a cigarette, in sleeves long enough to cover his left arm. He's tanned and his hair's a mess; he could pass for a surfer if he invested in baggier pants. It's only now that he looks close to his age — twenty one, twenty two. A kid, really. Nick wonders if he's killed anyone for Rogers yet.

Val gave him the address reluctantly — apparently her agreement with Rogers is quite profitable, and she's come to value his not-quite-trust in her — and only after threatening him and his organisation with copious amounts of unpleasantness if he forced Rogers to move somewhere safer and start from scratch.

But they had an agreement. Freedom for the Winter Soldier and Nick's help in exchange for Rogers' cooperation when the Avengers needed to be deployed in the field again. A freak in a metal mask and a billowing cape with access to more advanced technology than anything else on Earth is threatening to take over New York using cannibalised Stark-Banner biomechanical androids and what Thor swears up and down is Asgardian tech.

Nick watches the Winter Soldier. He wonders.

He only activates his comm link when he's out of the bar.

'Sir,' Maria's voice comes in. 'Did you locate them? I can have a tactical team in there in four hours. Do you need transport?'

Nick smiles. 'Don't bother. Wrong address.'


End file.
